


Only a Salt Kiss Remains

by InvictaAnimi



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Anal Sex, Attempted Kidnapping (not between Cas / Dean), Attempted Rape (not between Cas/ Dean), Blow Jobs, Caecelia are water spirits, Camouflage ability, Cellist, Cephalopods, Consentacles, Creature Fic, Dean Winchester Has Tentacles, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Explicit Sexual Content, Fantasy AU, Frottage, Kidnapping, M/M, Magical Realism, Marine life, Ocean themes, OctoDean, Post-World War I, Tentacle Dick, Tentacle Sex, Underwater Sex, but for good reasons, musician - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:55:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 28,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24375400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InvictaAnimi/pseuds/InvictaAnimi
Summary: Castiel is a brilliant cellist who plays by the seaside every day. Lately, though, he’s felt uncomfortable during his practice. His hair stands up on the back of his neck and he catches movement out of the corner of his eye. Of course, when he turns his head, nothing is there. He’s half convinced himself that his loneliness is causing him to go mad, when his admirer finally shows himself. Or itself.Being taken and held hostage against his will by a creature that shouldn’t exist might sound tragic to most people, but not to Castiel. Not in hindsight, anyway. It turns out, the most terrifying and unlikely of circumstances can bring unimaginable joy.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 52
Kudos: 226
Collections: Perfect Pair Bang 2020 (Official)





	1. The Power of your White Tongue that Shatters and Overthrows

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome lovely readers!!
> 
> This story is my second entry in the Perfect Pair Bang 2020. Thank you so much to all the mods who put this bang together and spent countless hours keeping it running smoothly. Your work is very appreciated.
> 
> I had the incredible good fortune to work with BeesAreAwesome on this collaboration. We had a fantastic time planning out how to make the story and art work together. I can't wait to work with Bees again soon!
> 
> Thank you also to my wonderful beta reader, MsJosephine. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy this magical world of defying expectations, finding love in the strangest of places, and, of course...tentacles.
> 
> We would LOVE to hear your thoughts.

_Ocean, if you were to give, a measure, a ferment, a fruit_

_of your gifts and destructions, into my hand,_

_I would choose your far-off repose, your contour of steel,_

_your vigilant spaces of air and darkness,_

_and the power of your white tongue,_

_that shatters and overthrows columns,_

_breaking them down to your proper purity._

Grave and somber notes are pulled from his cello with every sawing motion of the bow. His fingers coax out the perfect configuration of sounds to tell his tale of misfortune. Sorrow rumbles from the ancient wood that has witnessed many generations both live and die in turn. Crisp and clear are the melodies, though they compete with the crash of the ocean just a few yards away.

Castiel inherited the instrument, as well as the talent to play it, from his grandmother. When he was young, he sat at her feet, feeling the music roll through him like the waves of the sea. He never felt so alive and buoyant as he did when he listened to music, so it was an almost foregone conclusion that he would become a musician.

His calloused fingers don’t feel the pain of the strings vibrating underneath them anymore. They haven’t in years. But he remembers how they ached and bled until he built up the ugly rough bumps on the tips. His mother had been beside herself, warning him that he would appear a common laborer with hands like that. His grandmother, on the other hand, praised him with every new layer that formed. 

“It takes fortitude to build calluses like these, Naomi,” she would chastise. “Castiel returns to his music each day knowing that it will hurt him, that he will sweat and bleed for his art.”

Pangs of nostalgia beat along with his melancholy gift to the sea. This ritual of sitting in the salt air to play his music is all that remains of the Novak family. He is the clan’s sole survivor. 

Unlike the other young men in town, he’s never been interested in the girls that flock to the dances and play grown up in their sisters’ borrowed heels and heavy-handed makeup. He’d just as soon enjoy the company of his friends, but there aren’t many of them left. Most didn’t live to celebrate Armistice Day with him, and those that did are moving on to start careers and become family men.

His room at Harvelle’s Boarding House is small, but sufficient. There are fewer and fewer new boarders now, but he’s content in his solitude. From time to time, he’s able to help Mrs. Harvelle, the widow who owns the house, and her daughter, Jo, with odd jobs, so he feels useful.

For weeks, his daily visit to this spot by the sea has felt off. He feels watched; scrutinized. Which is ridiculous, because he is out in the open, and there’s no place for anyone to hide. Today, the same feeling returns. The hairs on the back of his neck stand at attention, even before he plays his first note. At first, he laughs at himself for excessive paranoia.

Towards the end of his practice, he’s certain that he’s seen movement in the brush multiple times, but whenever he shifts his eyes, nothing is there. Either something is out there watching, or he might be experiencing some sort of breakdown. Castiel picks a difficult and dramatic piece to end on, both to challenge himself and to force his mind to clear of everything else. Dvorak’s Cello Concerto in B minor is a composition that separates good players from virtuosos, and Cas puts all of his energy into his best performance of it.

Throughout the piece, the instrument’s range is tested. It requires intricate runs, delicate pianissimos, and galloping repeating phrases. Sweat beads on his brow as he plays, his face breaking into a tight furrow of concentration and passion. When he lifts the bow from the strings, he sighs. Satisfaction wars with sentimentality. His grandmother would have loved to hear him play that piece. He tips his head against the scroll and catches his breath.

Out of the corner of his eye, he catches subtle movement, so he looks up, prepared to see nothing but wind-tossed branches. The reality sends shock waves of fear and panic through him. A human figure crawls out of the underbrush, but it is perfectly camouflaged with the color and texture of the plants. As it stands and approaches more rapidly, the pattern shifts to match the grass and the water in the distance. 

If Castiel hadn’t witnessed it himself, he never would have believed it possible. He still isn’t quite sure that he’s in possession of all his mental faculties. It takes him until the creature is within reach for him to physically respond. He stands abruptly and steps over the bench, hoping to keep more than his priceless heirloom between them.

“Stay back,” he demands, pointing at the advancing beast with his bow. The thing has the gall to smirk at him and snatch the bow out of his hand. Castiel jumps and backs up as it comes closer, not sure what it intends and not caring to find out.

His hand refuses to relinquish his beloved instrument, even though he might have a chance to escape if he wasn’t restricted by its weight and awkward shape. Castiel is also quickly running out of land to back into. He’s cornered, and the monstrous figure in front of him obviously knows it. 

In the strangest development yet, the bizarrely colored and textured skin gives way to smooth, human-looking skin and hair. The creature now looks like a man, a beautiful man. Light brown hair, wide kelp green eyes, and the brightest smile he’s ever seen. Castiel is so mesmerized by the gorgeous face that he doesn’t recognize it for the lure that it is. 

Lightning-quick, the man creature lowers his shoulder and Castiel is scooped up around his thighs and tossed over very muscular shoulders. 

“Put me down!” he hollers as he squirms and shoves at the veritable wall. He’s more than aware that if he falls, he could break his precious cello. At this point, though, it appears that he is choosing between his own life or that of his instrument. 

“Why are you doing this? What do you want?” Castiel pleads as the incredibly strong man carries him over the rocks and towards the water. He can’t really mean to go swimming with a prisoner, can he?

Apparently, that’s exactly what the psychotic man intends to do. He wades out into the shallow water, and then sinks down effortlessly, bringing Castiel and his cello with him. At the last second, Castiel is able to lift the instrument enough to keep it out of the water, but he can’t maintain the hold. In just a minute or two, his arms tremble at keeping such heavy weight above him at arm’s length. Bringing his arms in, he accidentally smacks it into his attacker’s head and receives a nasty growl in response.

That’s his way out. Castiel sends up a prayer of apology to his grandmother and then rears back as far as he can and slams his most cherished possession into the back of the madman’s head. The creature halts, slides Castiel to his own feet and snatches the cello out of his hands. Cas isn’t going to go down without a fight, so he thrashes in his grip, twisting and hitting and grabbing for his cello.

“I’m not just going to let you take it. I’m not going to sit back and let you steal what’s mine.” Cas screams in the man’s face, face red with rage and breath panting. 

The creature with the fake smile and mesmerizing lips transforms before his eyes again. Castiel almost doesn’t see it because it happens below the water. He senses it, though. Feels it. There’s something moving beneath the water. Lots of things are moving and writhing beneath the surface.

“Let me go,” he pleads. His heart pounds as he feels something wrap around his leg. It slithers around the meat of his calf once and then again. 

The creature dives into the water, bringing a multitude of tentacles up to the surface, including the one gripping Castiel. He can’t help but scream as he’s taken down under the surface; the horror of what he is experiencing too insane to process in any other way. Water pours into his mouth as he is dragged deeper and deeper. 

Flailing limbs strain to pull him in the opposite direction, but he sees the surface continue to move away no matter how he struggles. Maybe if he kicks enough, thrashes and claws at his captor, he’ll become too much of a burden and he’ll release him. He can’t die this way. He can’t drown in the ocean less than 200 yards offshore. Although, at the rate they are moving, they’re most likely a lot farther out already.

His strength is nothing against this octopus creature. Merman? He isn’t sure what to call the thing that is dragging him to his imminent death, but it doesn’t really matter. He managed to sputter out all of his inhaled water, but with the water went his breath, and he’s almost out of oxygen. His mind is floating away, even as he’s panicking. Black spots in his vision are harbingers of his imminent demise.

With only a few seconds left before he blacks out, he stops trying to fight, and lets his body hang lax. That’s what finally gets the creature’s attention. He stops and looks down at Castiel, who is floating with glassy eyes and choking against the urge to gasp for breath.

The creature pulls him close quickly, using several of his wriggling tentacles. With one hand on the back of Castiel’s head, he fits their mouths together. 

Pulling energy from the depths of his soul, Castiel renews his fight, however fruitless it might be. He wasn’t able to fight off this man-shaped demon at full strength, he obviously won’t be able to now. He’ll be damned if he lets himself be molested as he drowns. 

With gestures of exasperation, the creature holds his head firmly on both sides, not giving him an inch of room to move. Instead of trying to deepen the kiss, he blows air into Castiel’s mouth. As the air forces its way into his lungs, the desperate need to breath lightens marginally. Blessed oxygen is filling his lungs, and Castiel could cry at how good it feels. He breathes roughly, out and back in again like he can’t take it in fast enough. His mouth is still fused to this inhuman creature, but he can’t fathom breaking their connection.

His hands take over holding them together. Tense fingers grip the man’s hair and neck, keeping his salvation in place. After a few breaths, Castiel is brought into the embrace of the creature so he can continue their journey. Although the water flows around him swiftly, he keeps his eyes closed. The only thing that matters in this moment is that he isn’t going to drown. In and out. His brain wakes up. In and out. His body strengthens. 

When they get wherever this monster is taking him, he’ll have a chance of getting away now. With every inhale, he develops his plan of escape. He thinks of everything. No matter the situation, he comes up with a tactical plan. Of course, he doesn’t anticipate the complex set of circumstances he finds himself in when he surfaces. It happens in a burst, his popping ears the only clue until he feels the water give way.

As soon as their heads come out of the water, Castiel shoves the creature away and turns in a circle, taking in every possible detail. They are in a very tall cavern, the ceiling of it soaring at least a hundred feet over his head. Near the top, sunlight shines in strongly, but as he searches the walls, he realizes that there is no way to reach that height. The rock walls are almost smooth, and the first real grip he could use is over halfway to the top. Turning, he sees a small beach of mostly wet sand that gradually rises up to the floor of a deeper set cave. He can only see a few bundles by the entrance, so he’ll have to investigate further. 

Rounding on the monster that kidnapped him, he is surprised to see the beatific smile on its lips as it watches him. He squints in confusion, but then he remembers his cello. 

“Give it to me!” he snaps. 

Now it’s the creature’s turn for confusion. Castiel growls and tries to get around him to take back his instrument. Possessing more than two legs is a decided benefit in the water, so when he turns, it isn’t even a contest. Before this turns into a game of chasing the creature’s tail, he stops and holds his hands out. When that doesn’t work, Castiel mimics playing the cello and it finally dawns on the monster.

He holds the cello upside down to drain the water out of its belly. Castiel makes a horrified gasp and covers his mouth. It will be ruined. His grandmother’s legacy is all but destroyed.

“Why? Why would you kidnap me and ruin the only thing in my life that I cared about?” Castiel is aware that he is shrieking and wailing, pulling at his hair, but it seems an appropriate response to such a travesty.

The creature holds the instrument out for him, laying it gently across his open palms. Castiel glares fiercely and snatches it. Striding up the beach as best as he can, he sinks into the soft, wet shell hash. Stumbling to his knees a few times doesn’t dissuade him. When he makes it to dry ground, he begins his inspection of the waterlogged wood. He can feel it buckling and warping under the touch of his fingers, and it brings tears to his eyes. “No, no, no. It’s ruined.”

The creature approaches, back on two legs again but he has kept the human illusion. He’s naked, but Castiel is too infuriated to even consider that fact. He runs at the beast, who smiles at his approach, until he makes impact. With fists swinging, Castiel takes every bit of his anger out on the abomination who took him from his home.

“You ruined it. It’s your fault. You monster.” Through his haze of rage, Castiel watches the beast’s face fall from happiness to confusion, and finally to sadness. He doesn’t try to fight back. He doesn’t even try to block Castiel’s punches, shoves, and slaps. 

When Castiel has worn himself out, he staggers back and lands on his ass. The beast’s head is hanging low and even from the ground, he can’t make eye contact. While he pants at his exertions and cries over his plight, the man - no, creature - walks silently into the cave.

  
  


*****

Castiel has never been this cold. Not even when he walked through a blizzard when he was a young boy. The salt water had been cold, frigidly cold, but the adrenaline of his panic kept his focus on surviving and not on his temperature. Sitting in the wet sand in his sopping wet clothes is not doing him any favors. There aren’t other options, though. He’s not going into that cave. He’s not taking off the only clothes he has. So, he’s just sitting huddled up and listening to the steady rhythm of his teeth chattering. 

He’s trembling so violently that he feels like he’s having a seizure. Gingerly, he pulls his arms out of the sleeves of his shirt and tucks them around his chest. There’s not much heat right now; in fact, it feels like he’s cuddling with a large cod, but he’s hopeful that some heat will build. Maybe enough to keep him alive. He puts his face into the neck hole, breathing his hot breath down into the little tent he’s created. 

Which suddenly disappears up and over his head in an instant. Looking over his head, he is about to protest, loudly and with a great deal of vigor, when the beast drops a thick blanket over his shoulders. He refuses to acknowledge the gift or its thoughtfulness out of pure spite. He rationalizes that he wouldn’t need the blanket if he wasn’t brought here in the first place. His mother would box his ears for his rudeness and tell him he was raised better than that. He politely tells his conscience to take a fucking hike.

Observing the blanket, he notices that it is made from several pelts. Maybe they are sea lions? The pelts are sown together and stuffed with something not so much soft as dense. Whatever is inside retains heat marvelously, and soon enough, Castiel is warm and sleepy. 

This day has been a nightmare, and he’s quite sure it’s only a little past noon. Certainly, he’s earned a nap, though. Unfortunately, he doesn’t trust the creature and doesn’t feel safe sleeping in his presence. Surreptitiously, he turns and tries to see where the beast has gone. It’s dark in the recesses of the cave, but Cas thinks he sees flame flickering and casting shadows closer to him. Impossible. How does he have a fire going?

Standing up is a terrible idea, he finds, and he reaches for the wall of the cave to keep him from falling over with both fatigue and dizziness. Immediately, the camouflaged monster reaches for him. He should have known the sneaky thing would be nearby watching him. How he is capable of changing his skin’s color and texture so realistically is a marvel, but Cas isn’t in the mood to be amazed. He pulls out of reach, earning himself another pained expression from his captor. Good. Maybe if he lashes out enough, he will get tired of Cas and take him home.

“Don’t touch me,” he snarls and walks into the cave towards the fire. 

Underneath the blanket, he removes his sodden pants and lays them over the drying rack where the beast had laid his shirt. 

As the creature walks by, he snatches the pants off the rack and takes them farther into the cave. Cas hears water sloshing about and then being wrung out. Soon, his captor returns with the clean pants and lays them by the fire to dry.

  
  
  
  
  



	2. Your Menace Thickening the Smooth Swells

_Not the final breaker, heavy with brine,_

_that thunders onshore, and creates_

_the silence of sand, that encircles the world,_

_but the inner spaces of force,_

_the naked power of the waters,_

_the immovable solitude, brimming with lives._

_It is Time perhaps, or the vessel filled_

_with all motion, pure Oneness,_

_that death cannot touch, the visceral green_

_of consuming totality._

  
  


Castiel glares across the fire at his captor. Throughout the past several days, the creature has offered him water from a beautifully carved cup, plates of fragrantly spiced cooked fish, and even fresh fruit. Every time, without fail, Castiel ignores him and turns his head away. Every time, it is left there for him. 

His stomach is cursing his pride and pleading with him to at least steal a few nibbles of the food or a sip of the water. He adamantly refuses with the kind of self-righteous indignation that could make him a martyr. When his stomach gurgles loudly, the beast casts him a furtive, worried glance.

Cas tries to put all of his rancor into his return stare. How dare his kidnapper show concern for his well being. If he cared, he should have left him alone. If he is so worried about Castiel being hungry, then he should take him back home. When the sad looks get to be too much, Castiel explodes. Digging into the food with his hand, he hurls it in the monster’s direction. 

“You have no right to be upset about me, not when all of this is your doing!” he shouts. Across the fire, the monster cringes away from the food and then again when Castiel throws more. The longer the tirade goes on, he comes to the plate, so that goes flying through the air, too.

“You stole me away from my home! Why? What do you want? What are you going to do to me?” Every question gets louder and more frantic, while Castiel hurls everything in his reach at the man who shrinks smaller and smaller in response.

When there is nothing left but the thick blanket wrapped around him, Castiel cuts off his nose to spite his face in the ultimate act of short-sighted vengeance. His source of heat and comfort is the only thing he has accepted from this vile creature, and that needs to end, too. Meeting the pitiful eyes through the flames, Castiel shrugs the blanket off and drops it on the raging fire. 

That finally gets a reaction other than concern. The beast yells something in a language Castiel has never heard before and darts to grab it out of the fire. He jerks his hand back when the flames leap and lick at his skin. Shaking out his burned hand, his captor runs toward the back of the cave which Castiel has not yet explored. Suddenly, it dawns on him that this is his opportunity for escape. 

Without another thought, Cas breaks for the entrance of the cave, hoping that it’s high tide and he won’t have to fight through the wet, sucking sand to get to the water. No such luck, but with a few quick leaps, he is past the sand and diving into the shallow water. His chest bumps the bottom, but he refuses to react. He swims frantically to the back wall of the cavern, knowing that he doesn’t have that much of a head start.

Once at the wall, he feels around for where the break in the rock is, where they came into the cavern from below. He doesn’t find it, even on the third pass. Dammit. It must be lower than he can reach. 

Taking a breath, he dives down, feeling along the wall for any give in the stone or even a stronger current in the water. He stays down as long as he can before he surfaces, sure that the creature will be after him as soon as he shows himself. He allows himself a few heaving breaths before he dives under again, this time struggling to get even deeper. 

Cursing the buoyancy of saltwater, he uses his fingertips to dig into the stone and pull himself down. Fighting against the laws of nature using his weakest extremities is perhaps asking too much of himself, but escape and freedom is worth the pain. His skin rips and stings as it bleeds into the briny water. The sharp and unforgiving shale cracks his nails until there is nothing left to use as a finger hold.

He surfaces for another brief instant, just long enough to suck in oxygen that he resents needing. Down he dives again, using the force of his ire against fate to fuel him. He reaches lower by using his initial momentum to propel him, and then he grapples with the immovable walls to eek out every additional inch.

He knows that there is a way out of this godforsaken hell pit. If there is a way in, there also must be a way out. He just needs to find it. As his breath is fading, a finger slips around a much deeper indention in the rock, and his heart leaps. Could this be it?

His vision is useless here in the dark water, but he opens his eyes against the salt to try to see his escape. He is right. Useless. And now he is so oxygen-deprived that his brain is shutting down. Shit. 

He struggles to float straight up, keeping part of his body touching the wall at all times. A few ragged breaths are all he allows and then forces himself to return to that same spot, the sure sign that he is close to freedom. Frantic fingers dance along the wall as he kicks with all his might. There. He finds the depression in the rock and follows it, knowing that it will curl around into the open ocean. 

Except that it does not. His heart drops when he finds more shale under his hands. Searching around in every direction, there is just more and more of the same. He contemplates not surfacing. Whatever fate the monster has planned for him can’t be worse than drowning, can it? The fleeting thought is abandoned as quickly as it creeps into his mind.

He will not give the vile thing the satisfaction of his demise. If he wants Castiel dead, he will have to do it himself while he looks him in the eye.

‘Speak of the devil and he will appear,’ his mother always warned him, and it seems that she was right. As he struggles to move deeper into the abyss, something wraps forcefully around his leg to halt his progress. He tugs and pulls, but he can’t shake the grip. When he feels another tentacle make contact with his free foot, he kicks and thrashes. 

The movement is using up his air quickly, but his desperation knows no bounds. He yanks his foot away, only to feel another slick, smooth tentacle trace along his wrist. Over and over, he twists, turns, and goes ass over teakettle just to keep his limbs out of the monster’s grasp.

Finally, the creature has had enough. In a blink, all four of Castiel’s limbs are wrapped tightly and pulled taut. The whoosh of water going past him shoves his hair back, so he can see the menacing face of his captor scowling in the dark water. Castiel can barely move, and he has no leverage of any kind. He is completely at this beast’s mercy, and he doesn’t appear to have much of it to spare, if any.

With eyes that do not so much as shift or blink, his captor studies him with a singularity of focus. Castiel has never felt so much like a lab rat, but there are other sensations, ones that he absolutely shouldn’t be feeling, that are trickling into his subconscious.

He’s never enjoyed feeling helpless, but he must admit that there is more than simple fear causing his heart to thud and thunder. Without looking away from Castiel’s face, the beast is reeling him in closer. At the waist of his pants, Castiel feels the tickle of yet another tentacle moving along his skin. It traces the contours of his navel, his ribs, and then over a hardened nipple. If he wasn’t suspended in water, he is sure he would be panting and biting at his lips. He’s suddenly so aroused that it doesn’t seem possible. The monster. He must be doing something to cause it. The curious appendage slithers up to the back of his neck, and then tugs Castiel’s head forward. 

In the next instant, he is being held in place by two firm hands while his mouth is plundered . Forgetting where they are, Castiel moans. Feeling water pour into his mouth, he panics. Catching the creature’s eyes, he tries to maneuver closer to take the precious air from his lips again. 

Fear grips him when the beast shakes his head. No? Why would he deny him now? Why feed him air and then let him drown? He is seething, air sawing in and out in his lungs. Wait.

He takes a tentative sip through pursed lips. He is breathing in the water. Somehow, he can breathe underwater. He smiles and laughs, amazed at the impossibility.

The grin he receives in return makes Castiel’s heart thud again. If there was ever a wolf in sheep’s clothing, he is face to face with it. This man is more beautiful than any sonata, as perfectly formed as Michelangelo’s David, even with the tentacles. Maybe even more so because of them.

Castiel cannot fall for these tricks. Even with a perfect face, this monster is hiding the heart of a villain. Castiel has been kidnapped, the only possession he cares about ruined. He will not forgive and he most definitely won’t forget. His face falls as he remembers, and it drags the other’s face with it. Realizing that now he doesn’t need to surface to breathe, he uses his entire body to twist out of the grasp of the slippery tentacles and drop into the deeper water. 

He only gets a few seconds’ head start before those same appendages appear at the edges of his vision, reaching for him again. Turning sharply in the water, he dodges capture, but only for a frantic moment. The creature is much more adept in the water, and Castiel cannot hope to compete against, much less escape him. The futility of the endeavor in no way dissuades him. He doesn’t give in until it becomes painfully obvious to them both that the creature is letting him tire himself out without actually exerting much effort himself. He darts into his path repeatedly, writhing appendages raised like a spider’s web, hoping to catch him unaware when he ventures too close. 

After an eternity of this game, Castiel finds it harder and harder to drag in oxygen. Whatever gift the creature gave him, it expires. Looking up, he can’t see the surface. Panic rushes through him again. He swims with all his might to break through into the air. The damnable beast blocks his path again. He shakes his head no in an exaggerated manner. Castiel gestures to his neck with both hands, hoping that he will be understood. He’s going to run out of air soon. 

Instead, the beast shakes his head again. Castiel scowls at him and gestures more aggressively. The beast smirks and points to his own face and blows a large string of bubbles. When the bubbles descend, it dawns on Castiel that he managed to get turned around and was swimming down instead of up. The creature was trying to help him. 

Feeling tired as well as inept and ridiculous, Castiel turns himself around and gasps out a sob. His despair manifests itself into a solitary bubble that proceeds slowly ahead of him as he drifts toward the surface. He couldn’t even make it out of the cavern by himself. He would have drowned if the monster hadn’t stopped him from swimming in the wrong direction. Speak of the devil again, he is suddenly carrying Castiel, making it to the surface in a handful of powerful thrusts. 

When Castiel can drag air into his lungs again, his sobbing continues. Giving in to this emotional outburst feels like defeat, but he is cracked open and his fear and pain spill out unbidden. 

The water sluices over him and drips to the ground as the creature takes to his two legs again, supporting the weight of Castiel’s body as easily on land as in the buoyant water. He holds tighter around the creature’s neck, as they enter the darkness of the cave, his wailing nowhere near an end. 

*****

He hates that the creature continues to treat him with unbearable kindness. He sits down with Castiel’s weight leaning into him, dragging a thick blanket around them both to warm and dry them. 

When Castiel has cried himself out, he fades into an exhausted sleep. He wakes to find himself completely dry and laying wrapped in the blanket on a soft pallet while the creature is bent over his hand. 

In the dancing firelight, Castiel sees that he is cleaning his skin and putting something on the cuts. The oily substance stings on a couple of the deeper cuts which he assumes must mean that the medicine is doing its intended job.

He might have been taken against his will, but he’s too tired to continue railing against the man who is taking care of him. At least for today, they have a truce. Castiel wore himself ragged trying to escape, and his eyes are heavy.

“Thank you,” he murmurs quietly, causing surprised eyes to appear from under thick fringes of lashes. The creature tilts his head in confusion. Not knowing how else to say it, Castiel gestures with his head towards the hand holding his hand gently, and then puts a hand over his heart and repeats the phrase. A soft smile graces the other man’s lips and he nods before resuming his work. 

Castiel drifts away, opening his eyes again when the ripping of cloth catches his attention. The creature looks sheepish when he rips it again. Castiel recognizes his shirt but can’t be bothered to care that it is currently being shredded into bandages for his fingers. 

Again he is roused from the pull of sleep, this time by the smell of something delicious. The other man is kneeling at his side, pulling him into a seated position and propping him up before his eyes are really open. He makes pitiful sounds of complaint, caught between the desire to sleep and being too weak to put up much of a fight. 

Soft, crooning sounds reply to his petulance. He can’t understand the words, but they are obviously meant to encourage and soothe. The rich baritone of the other man’s voice, and the complex melody of the foreign words are comforting. The syllables are so unique, so different from anything he has ever heard. 

When he feels something solid touch his lips, he convinces his eyes to open. An elegant, tortoiseshell spoon is dripping a few drops of a thick soup onto his lips while the other man speaks to him. He chases them with his tongue and discovers a flavorful and wonderfully spicy taste. He sighs happily and reaches to take the spoon. The man shakes his head again, and offers the spoon to his lips. 

Too exhausted to fight in gestures, and not having the language to do anything else, Castiel opens his mouth instead. Allowing the creature to feed him feels too intimate, but he’s starving after denying his hospitality for so long. The fish stew is delicious; the fresh and flaky fish is almost sweet in his mouth. There are shelled clams and scallops in the dish too, and he smiles at the gourmet food he is eating. He wasn’t expecting such treatment in a cave of all places. 

He’s been the creator and perpetrator of many misconceptions since the other man brought him here. Castiel had assumed that he had ill intentions, and what else could he have possibly thought when he was stolen away from his home? Since he arrived in this cavern, though, he’s been cared for, protected, and treated like a guest. The creature that he has referred to as a monster has been nothing but gentle with him. As he opens his mouth to receive bite after bite of the hearty meal, Castiel watches his captor and thinks. 

Coming to the conclusion that none of his questions can possibly be answered until they can understand each other, he extends an olive branch.

“What is your name?”

The creature smiles at him but shakes his head. 

Castiel points at his own chest and says, “I am Castiel.”

He points at the other man’s chest and tilts his head curiously. 

Pointing to other things, he names them, and then returns to himself. “I am Castiel.”

Understanding and excitement dawn on the man’s face. He’s getting it. 

“Ca-” he starts and blushes uncertainly. 

Castiel nods in encouragement and repeats his name slowly several more times. No matter how often he tries, the other man can’t get the hang of putting a “t” sound after the “s”. 

“Cas is fine,” he smiles and pats his chest. “Cas.”

“Cas,” the man smiles and nods. Cas thinks the blush is adorable on such a powerful man. He knows that he is softening too much too soon, but this creature, man, whatever he is, is charming and gorgeous. It’s hard to remember why he was angry about being brought here.

Then, he points to himself and makes a long string of completely foreign sounds that make Cas’s eyes widen in surprise. The other man belly laughs in response and says the entire thing again, all the while tapping his own chest. Cas tries to catch the rhythm, but he only gets as far as “de-na” before the man shakes his head. “Dean?”

Cas sighs in relief at the compromise. “Dean.”

They practice their nicknames and Dean picks up a few other words along the way. Cas is embarrassed that he is utterly incapable of making some of the basic sounds of Dean’s language, and within a few minutes, they settle on English being the mode of communication because while his pronunciation is rough, Dean can at least pronounce most things. 

Dean particularly likes the way some words sound, and he walks around the cave repeating them. He has been saying the word “fish” for the last several minutes, but instead of finding it annoying, Cas finds it incredibly cute. 

He’s still not convinced that Dean doesn’t have the ability to put him in thrall because there’s no way he should be watching Dean clean their few dishes with this dopey smile on his face. Cas is still propped up against the wall and wrapped up in the blanket, but he’s starting to feel his nakedness underneath. There’s no way that Dean could be aware of his physical interest, especially since he’s been nothing but an asshole since Dean brought him here. 

“Cas?” 

Castiel glances up at the object in Dean’s hand. “Knife,” he says and then repeats it slowly. Once Dean has the word, he switches his repetition to the new one. 

“Knife, knife, knife,” he babbles as he plays around with emphasis and inflection. 

Cas forces his eyes up when Dean’s lower body comes into view. He’d almost forgotten that Dean was completely naked again. It hadn’t been an issue when Cas was spewing venom on the other man. He hadn’t cared enough to look. Now that he’s decided to be civil, to try to communicate, his libido is out of control. Dean’s beauty doesn’t end with his face. On the contrary, he is perfect everywhere, and Cas is trying not to be a pervert.

Dean drops down beside him, on the opposite side as the fire. Tugging at the edges of the blanket, he tries to uncover Cas. Clutching at the blanket, and his modesty, Cas yells at Dean to stop. Dean scowls at him and mutters in his own language while he pulls on the blanket some more. Cas pulls back harder.

“Cas,” he tries to reason with him, but Dean is completely out of vocabulary. He huffs his aggravation and points at the pile of garbage by the fire. Then he points to the blanket Cas is wrapped in. Then back to the pile of charred…

Oh, shit. Cas burned the other blanket in his temper tantrum earlier. Now that he thinks of it, Dean had been burned trying to reach into the fire. Covering his mouth with one hand, he is both contrite and horrified with himself. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers and meets Dean’s eye. The other man squints at him in confusion and Cas does his best to explain. He lifts Dean’s hand and turns it over to see the burn across his knuckles. It is so much worse than he expected. The skin is angry and blistered, and Dean didn’t bandage himself. 

Cas frowns and uses emphatic gestures to ask why he received care and Dean didn’t care for himself. Dean shrugs when he understands, and looks away. Cas grips his jaw and turns his head back. Shaking his head, he tries to relay that he wants to care for Dean, too. He holds Dean’s gaze until he finally nods and gets up to retrieve supplies. Cas is mesmerized by the sway of his perfect butt cheeks as he walks away. 

Knowing that you don’t find women sexually appealing is a completely different thing from being confronted by a naked man that you find incredibly attractive, Castiel is finding out. For the majority of his life, he hadn’t really known if he was homosexual or just uninterested in sex. When he’d been in the army, he’d seen glances of naked skin, the suggestion of a penis through baggy uniform underwear. He’d never so much as blushed at inappropriate times. 

Now, though. Now, the blanket is the only barrier keeping his erection hidden while he bandages Dean’s hand. He struggles to keep his breathing even and his eyes on his task. Temptation to touch, to lean closer, to soak up Dean’s heat and his smell are making Cas dizzy. His toes are curling in an effort to keep him from giving himself away. 

It doesn’t help at all that Dean is studying him, taking this quiet moment to touch his hair and run his fingers over every curve and hollow of his face. It is distracting in the extreme, but also done so innocently that Cas feels like a reprobate for being aroused by the curious touches. 

Every time Dean taps a part of him, Cas obliges with the correct word. Dean has learned hair, eye, nose, and lips so far, and Cas is still wrapping his wound. As Dean’s fingers dip down, Cas clears his throat. The intelligence in Dean’s eyes is disconcerting in this moment. He sees much more than Cas wants him to. A single finger runs delicately down the side of his neck and to his chest. The tip of it catches the tight nub of his nipple, and Cas hisses in surprise. Dean’s eyes light up in response. He taps the sensitive body part, asking for its name. 

“Nipple,” Cas says quietly and caves his chest in to squirm away from the touch. Dean’s smile is distinctly shark-like. He waits until Cas is bent over his hand again and then rubs his fingers over the other one. He repeats his new word proudly as Cas jumps. 

“Dean,” Cas warns with a stern look. The other man throws his head back with a roar of laughter. Cas can’t help but join him. In the hours since he has let down his guard, Cas has been amazed by the guileless simplicity of this man’s life. His easy smile, his generosity, his lack of shame. It is refreshing to see a life lived outside of society’s unnatural rules and expectations. 

The more Cas thinks about it, the more he’s certain that Dean is living the better life. He is not driven to fight in other men’s wars, whether he believes in the cause or not. He is not forced to hide parts of himself away because others consider them shameful and sinful. He is free to walk around uninhibited in his own home. Cas is almost convinced to throw off the blanket and share his nudity, but he remembers just in time that his body is betraying too much right now. 

The only explanation for what happens next is that Cas’s face has projected his thoughts too thoroughly. Dean must have realized that Cas is hiding something, because he unexpectedly yanks the sides of the blanket open, exposing the entire front of Castiel’s body. 

Shock and mortification race through him as Dean’s eyes scan over his body intensely. His fingers sweep up Cas’s thigh, but his eyes are pinned to the obvious erection. His cock is straining over his stomach, with a flushed head that is wet at the tip. There is no denying his arousal. 

When Dean looks up, his eyes are dark with interest. Licking his lips, he grips Cas’s erection, earning a huffed out curse. He rubs his thumb over Cas’s leaking tip, tapping it in the same way he’s asked for every other name. 

Cas’s mouth is open, panting out his breath. “Penis,” he whimpers in response. 

Dean narrows his gaze and grips him tighter. He strokes over the head and back down, his eyebrow raised. Cas has the blanket in a death grip, the lack of oxygen making him dizzy. No one else has ever touched him. He isn’t quite sure what to do, or even if he should do anything at all. Dean’s hand, so large and masculine, feels so good on him. He is using a tighter hold than he normally would, but he’ll be damned if it doesn’t feel better. 

Tapping the head again, Dean asks for the name. Cas isn’t sure what he wants. He tilts his head and squints at him, shaking his head in consternation. He says the word again, and Dean huffs. 

A mischievous grin slips into place and suddenly, Cas has a lap full of Dean. His body writhes up against Cas, making sure that every part of their bodies are mirrored and snugly fit together. Cas looks up at the sexiest thing he’s ever witnessed, his jaw dropping in awestruck wonder. Dean’s skin lights up with an unearthly glow when he breathes in. On his exhales, the color shifts darker and breaks up to form natural patterns that follow the contours of his body. 

As his skin is showing off, his body is making an even bigger impression. Cas moans to see their erections touch and slide against each other. That alone would have been worth watching for hours, if not days. Dean has a different idea, though, and takes Cas in his hand to join his own hard dick. Putting them both under pressure, squeezing just right, makes Cas’s eyes cross in pleasure. He loses the battle to keep his hands to himself, and they automatically fall to Dean’s trim waist. Both of his thumbs stroke over Dean’s taut stomach, enjoying the texture of hot silk over tensing muscle. 

After a few guided thrusts, Dean ceases his movement and taps both of their heads. Cas’s brain isn’t functioning enough to understand what Dean is getting at but he tries. “I don’t know what you want, Dean. It’s called a penis. Or a dick. An erection when it’s hard, or a cock, if you want to be crass.”

His eyes light up, as does his skin, towards the end. Dean gestures for him to say it again. “What? Cock?” Cas can’t help the blush that sweeps over his face. It isn’t a word that he’s said very often, but seeing the reaction it gets from Dean, he pushes himself upright, putting his lips right next to Dean’s ear. “You like that word? Cock. It’s lewd and base, isn’t it?”

“Cock,” Dean growls, his voice all bass in his arousal. 

“Yes, it does sound right coming from your lips, Dean,” Cas purrs back. Boldly, he noses along the column of Dean’s neck, dropping kisses along the length.

“I’ve never touched another cock. Would you let me touch yours?”

Dean turns to meet his eyes, suspicion in them. Looking down between them, he lets one finger hover over Dean’s skin, and then looks back with an arched brow. Dean blinks a few times, a smile raising on his lips. He grasps Cas’s hand and uses it to replace his own around their swollen lengths.

Adjusting his grip, Cas keeps the pad of his thumb in contact with Dean’s sex as he strokes them. Dean is bigger than Cas, but mostly in thickness. Cas is completely mesmerized by the feel of him and would love to focus solely on his pleasure, learning what Dean likes and what sends him flying. However, he doesn’t know if this is a one time thing. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever get this chance again, and he won’t squander the opportunity to finally have sex. He’s waited too damn long.

The pulsing light inside Dean’s skin makes Cas dizzy, or maybe that’s just the desire he’s feeling. Stroking his dick feels good, but this is infinitely better than masturbation. Dean’s panting breath in his ear, his murmured, if not understood, words moaned from his slack mouth while he rocks in Cas’s lap. It’s all so beautiful to witness that he almost wishes that he was watching it from a distance to take in the full picture. The slick slide of their cocks in his hand, though, is more than enough to entice him to continue. 

Cas pays attention to each and every reaction Dean gives him, and he quickly learns that the man in his lap loves to have their heads squeezed through a tight ring of his fingers, so Cas obliges and uses the strength of his hands to force them through even more slick friction. He is amazed by the slippery wetness in his hand. Dean is leaking so much that it’s like being coated in richly-scented oil. 

Cas vacillates between staring down at their glistening cocks and up at Dean’s unabashed pleasure. “You’re so beautiful, Dean.”

Half-lidded eyes drag down to his face and Dean whispers his own words to Cas as he caresses the line of his jaw. The moment hangs impossibly long and weighty before Dean huffs a sound of distress and brings their lips together in a kiss that is both yielding and demanding. Cas lets himself be carried away on the tide of Dean’s passion, giving in to the soaring feelings of wanting and being wanted in return. 

There aren’t words for the rush he feels at watching Dean throw his head back and keen as he trembles through his orgasm. It triggers Cas’s own release, which he works them both through. Dean holds him gently, running his fingers through his hair and kissing his lips as if they are the sweetest delicacy.

Though they are sweaty and covered in come, Dean leans his weight forward to push Cas down to lay on the pallet as he continues his sated kissing. Cas thinks that this might be the best part of the entire experience, and there are a multitude of choices that are contenders. Long, deep kisses are enhanced by their slack muscles and lazy heat. There is no hurry to move, no desire to be anywhere but here. 

Finally, Dean asks him a question before he gets up. Cas shakes his head, not understanding until Dean gestures drinking something. Cas nods and smiles up at him. With the heat and weight of Dean suddenly gone from his body, Cas both literally and figuratively feels cold. 

Questions berate him from every rational corner of his mind. What the hell is he thinking? Just this morning, he was desperate to be free of this man, this place. How could he be so easily seduced by a pretty face? Why would he give his virginity, his first sexual experience, to the man that kidnapped him? His heart races and his breathing goes uneven. 

“Cas?” Dean is giving him that intense, worried face and sets everything he is holding on the table before sliding to his knees by Cas’s side. When he reaches out for Cas’s face, he flinches away and scrambles back farther into the wall. 

The pain that washes over Dean’s face is staggering, but is soon replaced by a coldness that truly makes Cas shiver. He doesn’t even have the time to utter an apology before Dean camouflages himself and fades back into the shadows. 

A few moments later, Cas hears a splash out in the lagoon, so Dean must have left. Instead of being curled up with Dean, basking in the afterglow of sex, he’s left feeling like a complete asshole. It’s fair, he realizes. He should be left to wallow in the sour feelings of guilt and shame. Dropping his head onto his knees, he desperately wishes that he hadn’t panicked right after getting them both off. He also wishes that they had the ability to communicate in any but the most rudimentary ways.


	3. The Vessel Trembles with your Salt and Sweetness

_Only a salt kiss remains of the drowned arm,_

_that lifts a spray: a humid scent,_

_of the damp flower, is left,_

_from the bodies of men. Your energies_

_form, in a trickle that is not spent,_

_form, in retreat into silence._

_The falling wave,_

_arch of identity, shattering feathers,_

_is only spume when it clears,_

_and returns to its source, unconsumed._

  
  


Cas wakes up in the late morning. After days of being in the cave, he’s aware of the time based solely on where the light is coming from. This little of it means that it must be close to noon, when the sun is directly overhead and not filtering into the tall cavern.

The fire is out and has been for quite a while since there’s no smoldering at all coming from the ashes. Cas knows it’s going to be cold outside of his little cocoon, especially since he’s down to just pants for clothes. There’s nothing to be done for it, though. Dean obviously hasn’t returned, and quite honestly, he doesn’t know if he even intends to return. 

Of course he will come back eventually. He wouldn’t have built up so many supplies in a temporary shelter, right? So, it’s up to Cas to keep things running. He needs the heat, and he needs a way to cook, so…fire. Groaning at the throbbing in his fingertips, he pushes himself up to sitting.

It only takes a split second to decide that he can’t handle the chill air without the blanket, so he wraps it around his shoulders like a long coat and makes his way to the dark interior part of the cave where Dean has his stores of supplies. Fumbling around in the dark, he finds an abundance of shelves and boxes filled with all sorts of necessities. There is one for potatoes and other root vegetables, one for glass bottles, and even one for various thicknesses of rope. He would like to see what else Dean is keeping in this area, but there is no light back this far in the cave. Everything he finds must be observed with his sore hands and his sense of smell. 

That’s how he eventually finds the firewood. The scent of cut pine leads him right to the large stack once he focuses on using his nose. Feeling proud of his observational skills, he locates the flint and steel that he has watched Dean use several times. He creates a passable fire in a few minutes, and then sets his mind on food. He doesn’t know where Dean might keep any meat. There isn’t an ice box that he can find, and it isn’t sitting out in an obvious place. Cas grabs a potato and a couple of vegetables, thinking about making a soup. 

Water. Dean has brought him fresh water on many occasions, so there has to be a source. Using a large piece of tinder and a bit of his shirt, he makes a very short-lived torch, but it lasts long enough to let him find the catchment system Dean uses to funnel rain water into a large cistern. He opens the lid and dips a large cup into it. The water is cold and fresh, and he can’t resist pouring some into his open mouth, careful not to contaminate the cup before dipping it in again.

Hours later, he’s eaten the soup, cleaned up his mess, remade the pallet bed, and now he is searching the cave for his cello, all the while fretting over where Dean could be. All day long, he’s been thinking about how he can apologize, how he can make Dean understand. What can he say, though? I fell into a panic because we masturbated together? My insecurities came out and started judging me for acting on this ridiculous attraction I feel for you? Let’s try it again, and I promise that I won’t treat you like a leper this time?

Even if any of those excuses would work, he can’t manage a single one of them without words. He growls his frustration with his head tipped to the ceiling, which is how he realizes that his cello is up on a shelf above him. It’s wrapped in a few pelts and stuffed with something like absorbent wool. It’s a testament to how out of sorts he’s been the past few days. Dean had set the cello near the fire to dry out when he was first brought here, but Cas hadn’t noticed that he had moved it. 

The material inside the cello comes out in a single long piece, which makes the process considerably easier. He hadn’t been relishing the idea of trying to chase little pieces of fabric out of the belly of his instrument. There are several damp patches on the fabric, proving that it did its job of pulling moisture from the wood. 

Bringing the cello and its bow out to the table, Cas sits at the long, handmade bench and holds his breath. This is the moment of truth. With this first draw of the bow, he will know if it is ruined. He huffs out the breath and puts his fingers in position. The first tone is wobbly, but it’s been days since he played, and his fingers are more tender than he would have guessed. The second note comes out clearer, but there is a watery quality to it. The higher notes are reminiscent of the cry of gulls, and the lower notes evoke the crash of waves. In every note, he feels a draw to the sea.

Up and down the scales he plays, one note at a time, listening to the changes in his beloved cello. The notes ring true, so he attempts a complete tune. Even with the subtle differences, it plays rather beautifully. The added sounds are hypnotic, reminding him of a siren’s song. He smiles when he finishes the song. We all come through disaster changed in ways that we don’t expect, and his cello is no different.

He starts in on one of his own compositions, a mournful piece about isolation and the chill of solitude. Out of the corner of his eye, he catches sight of Dean standing in the shallow water. He must want to be seen, or Cas wouldn’t be able to, so amazing is his ability to camouflage. Cas stands and sets the cello aside quickly, coming to the sandy beach while wringing his hands and still not knowing what to say. Dean’s face is stoic and unreadable, so Cas just begins talking. 

“I’m sorry, Dean. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel unwanted, or whatever you felt. I’ve never done anything like that before, and I just lost control of myself. I couldn’t stop second guessing, and I just -”

“Cas!” Dean interrupts harshly. He snaps his jaw shut in response. Wow. That commanding tone works on Castiel on a number of levels. He swallows hard and waits for Dean’s response. He’s expecting anger. He’s expecting him to push past Cas and ignore him. 

He’s not expecting the man to walk forward with a sweet smile, arms open wide. Cas deflates in relief, stepping into the warm circle of Dean’s arms. There are still nagging thoughts at the back of his mind that he shouldn’t be apologizing to his captor. He shouldn’t walk so easily into his arms. Cas pushes them away, not wanting to succumb to the bitterness from before.

Cas hears Dean speaking, listens intently from his comfortable spot against his throat, but it’s all gibberish to him. He pulls back to give a quizzical look, and Dean just grins and shakes his head. After an awkward minute of staring into each other’s eyes, Dean takes his hand and brings him back to the table. He hands him his bow and sits down on the floor in front of him. Dean raises his hands as if in prayer and gestures to the cello. Cas squints at him, pretending to contemplate what he’s already decided to do. His decision is clinched when Dean pokes out a pouting lip. Cas smiles at his petulance and asks, “Okay, okay. What would you like to hear?”

Of course, Dean can’t answer that question. Not yet. Cas is looking forward to the day when he can.

  
  


*****

“I want to hear the Bach piece again,” Dean says, his hand drifting to Cas’s thigh which is cradling the instrument. This has become part of their day over the past several weeks, these little concerts. Cas is happy to play whatever Dean asks him to play, but he’s been getting sick of this particular piece of late. 

“How about the Dvorak?”

“Too sad.”

“What about the G Major concerto?”

Dean sighs with a little smile, keeping his hand on Cas’s leg, but letting it drift down to wrap around his calf. “Sure. That’s a good one.”

Cas will never tire of how Dean watches him while he plays. He’s looking up from his position on the floor with such wonder and utter devotion. His eyes only leave Cas’s face to watch his fingers move swiftly along the strings. He appears captivated by the music, but more by Castiel himself, which fills him with a feeling he can’t explain except to say that he’s come to crave it. 

This sense of purpose, of belonging, of being wanted by another person and feeling completely fulfilled with them - it’s new and marvelous. It defies all of his misconceptions about relationships, and it settles his soul.

In the middle of playing another of Dean’s favorites, he is forced to stop when a large section of the bow hair breaks away. He and Dean appear equally devastated by the development. 

“Oh, Cas. Can you fix it?”

Cas quirks a regretful smile. “I could if I had a horse.”

At Dean’s expression, he points to the now loose fibers, explaining, “These are the tail hairs from a horse.”

Dean takes the bow and rubs the material between his thumb and finger. “Can it be substituted for something else?”

“Maybe? I’ve never used anything else.” He runs his fingers through Dean’s hair before he stands and walks his cello back to its storage spot. “Honestly, I was expecting it to fail on me much sooner than it did. I haven’t put rosin on the bow in weeks.”

“What is that? What is rosin?”

Cas explains the sticky sap-like substance and how it is applied to the hairs of the bow to help them grip the strings and eliminate friction. When he looks up at Dean, he is surprised to find that his eyes are cast down, a flush on his cheeks. 

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Cas kneels beside him, tilting his head up.

“I’m sorry, Cas. I ruined your bow.”

“You didn’t ruin it, Dean.”

“I brought you here, and you couldn’t take care of it like you should.”

Cas nibbles at his bottom lip, not wanting Dean to feel bad, but he’s also not going to lie. 

In a sudden rush, Dean gets to his feet and charges for the beach. 

“Where are you going?” Cas yells after him. 

“I’m going to fix this,” Dean assures him before plunging into the water. Cas rolls his eyes and stares off into the distance. Where the hell is Dean planning to get horse hair and pine rosin? He’s naked and has no money. There’s no way a horse is just going to let him cut a chunk out of its tail, and the only other option is to kill the horse. Oh god. His eyes go wide in dismay. What if Dean comes to the same conclusion and kills a horse? He wouldn’t do that, would he?

Of course not, he scoffs at himself. Dean never kills unless it is absolutely necessary. In the short months that they’ve been together, Cas has learned so much about Dean that he feels absolutely certain about that judgment. Even the pelts for their blankets, including the one that Dean had made him repair as both a consequence and a teaching tool, were found objects. He only takes them from animals that have died. 

Cas takes a leisurely swim after he sets up dinner to cook over the low fire. It’s summertime now, so the water is much warmer than it was when he first arrived. He enjoys swimming in it, watching the curious fish swim nearby only to dart away when he moves. 

After the swim, he’s surprised that Dean hasn’t returned. It’s about the time they eat every day, and Dean doesn’t miss meals. That is a hard and fast rule. Dean loves food almost as much as sex, and Cas is abundantly happy that he has those priorities in the right order. He blushes as he thinks of Dean and their exuberant sex life. 

While Dean had been eager to teach him how to give blow jobs and how to use his fingers and mouth to loosen up his hole, he had been hesitant about taking things any farther once Cas conveyed the idea that he hadn’t ever had penetrative sex before. It took a full week of cajoling and using his newly-found skills of seduction before Dean finally gave in and fucked him. 

Now, they are both masters of each other’s bodies. Cas can play Dean as well as he can his cello. He can pull out whatever wailing note he wants to hear, feel every bruise planted on his hips from desperate fingers, take him from docile to shaking through an intense orgasm in just a few minutes. Of course, the same is true for Dean. He has the added benefits of years of experience and a commanding presence that sets Cas ablaze. He figured out that little bit about Cas almost instantaneously. 

Whenever Dean is in the mood for sex, he stalks Cas like prey, keeping his face neutral, but letting the lust seep into his gaze. When he crowds Cas with his larger body, he gets hard and needy. When he whispers his intentions and orders Cas to obey, his legs go wobbly. Cas loves this little game they play so much that even remembering that look on Dean’s face is enough to get him hot. 

He wants a hot bath, so he heads into the back of the cave and climbs up the worn path to where their own little hot spring resides. It’s a shallow pool, only about three feet deep, but it’s more than enough to soak in and remove the brine and dirt from his skin. Rubbing his legs together in the water, he’s reminded of the one thing that Dean hasn’t done with him. The stray thought brings a furrow to his brow. It catches in his mind and he worries at it like teeth nipping at his lip.

Since they have been together, Dean hasn’t shown Cas his other side. He hasn’t shifted, and now that he’s thinking about it, Cas is sure that it is somehow his fault. After all, Dean had no problem shifting to his tentacled form before Cas had flinched away from him. He is pretty certain that Dean is ashamed of Cas seeing that side of him, and that won’t do. 

Not only is he interested in everything about Dean, but Cas fondly remembers the very few times Dean’s smooth, slippery tentacles moved over his skin. In fact, he gets goosebumps when he thinks about them. They have featured in a multitude of his dreams, and he wants them on his body in the worst way. As the light fades outside the cave, Cas conceives of a plan to get what he wants. His eyes flash with wicked delight as he puts everything in place. 

When the sun is setting, Cas is ready. Dean has a number of small oil lamps, and Cas lights them all, placing them strategically around the cave. The result is a beautiful golden glow in their home. He has taken care of dinner and left it near the fire to keep warm. He plans to have Dean feed it to him from his nimble tentacles. He also brought a flask of water out to the table for when their exertions leave them parched and in need of hydration. 

He is so anxious for this seduction to work that he’s having a hard time settling into doing the most important part. He’s laid out on their bed, completely naked. Closing his eyes and recalling the lovely images that helped to craft this seduction in the first place, he finally feels the deep ache in his belly as his cock fills. He shivers as his fingers trace along his skin, wishing they were Dean’s fingers and hopefully tentacles, too. Nipples harden as he drags over them lightly. He wonders if the suckers towards the base of his tentacles would latch on to them and pull. 

Cas wraps his fingers around his erection, envisioning one of the deft appendages wrapping around him instead. He moans at the thought of Dean stroking him with two of his arms while the others caress and toy with whatever parts they can reach. While he lazily keeps his dick interested, the fingers of his other hand drift down below. One finger delves deeper and rubs over his hole. Just the idea that Dean might use one of his tentacles to prod and tease him open sends a wave of lust through him. “Fuck,” he bites out and wishes that Dean would hurry up. He needs Dean to take over, to pound into him and fill him in that perfect way. 

Cas flips over onto his knees, and lowers his head down to the bed. Slicking up a finger with a little oil, he drops back into his fantasy. Dean’s arms are everywhere now. Two of them are holding Cas’s cheeks open while a third one strokes over his hole, loosening him for its invasion. He dips his finger inside, wiggling it around to slick up his rim. His hands are strong and dexterous from his many years playing the cello, so he is able to glide in and out of his hole while maintaining the tortuously slow pace on his dick. His intention is not to get off, but to tempt Dean so thoroughly when he walks in that he can’t think of anything else but fucking him. When he is lost in lust, there is nothing that Dean will deny him, so it will be the perfect time to ask him to shift.

By the time Cas hears the tell tale sign of someone coming out of the water, he’s two fingers deep in his ass and so lust drunk that he almost misses the voices. Plural. He’s tuned in to Dean’s voice, even though it sounds so different not speaking English. Then, a foreign voice answers him. Shit. They’re about to have company. 

Cas quickly pulls his fingers out of himself and lets go of his leaking cock. He barely gets himself covered with a blanket when Dean appears with another tall man. His nostrils flare, and his gaze snaps to Cas. 

Cas smiles tightly and says a wobbly hello, but there’s nothing he can do about his breathing, his flushed face, his erection, or the scent of sex in the air. He only prays that what he was doing before they walked in isn’t as obvious as it appears to him.

Dean speaks quietly to the man, whose face registers shock before they both turn to look at Cas.

“Cas, I’d like to introduce you to my friend.” Dean goes on to pronounce his name in their native language, but Cas is stymied. Dean repeats it again and Cas gets as far as “Br” before he shakes his head. Dean speaks to his friend again, and they both laugh. Cas scowls in return.

“I was just explaining that the sounds of our language are difficult for you.”

“Yes, I’m sure it was hilarious,” he snaps. Thankfully, his irritation is more than enough to help wilt his insistent dick. 

“Don’t be like that, Cas. I was just saying how adorable I thought it was that you keep trying anyway.”

Cas pulls the ends of the blanket tighter around him, but quirks a little smile. “I made dinner if you’re hungry.”

“If?” Dean asks as he gestures for his friend to take a seat at the table while he goes to retrieve the large pan. “Have I ever not been hungry, Cas?”

Setting the platter of fish on the table along with some bowls, Dean digs in and apparently tells his friend to do the same. Cas doesn’t move. He hasn’t been found out yet, but feels that his proximity to Dean is mostly the reason. 

“Aren’t you going to eat, sweetheart?” 

“No, I’m not really hungry,” Cas replies. When Dean looks concerned, he directs his attention away by adding, “I ate a really late lunch.”

They continue eating and chatting, Dean translating anything of interest. They settle on Bart as a nickname for his friend so that Cas can call him something, and Dean explains how they came to arrive together. Apparently, Dean found a section of baleen that he believes he can work with to create a replacement for the bow hair, and needed some help getting it free from the whale carcass. Thankfully, they don’t discuss that process during dinner. 

Throughout the meal, Cas notices that Bart rarely takes his eyes off of him. If he were at the table with them, it might not feel so obvious and uncomfortable. As it is, it’s making him very nervous. The looks the man gives him are predatory, and not at all appropriate considering who Cas is to Dean.

That thought starts off a whole other flurry of concerns. What if he isn’t anything to Dean but a convenience? What if Dean plans to foist him off on someone else? Is that what this is? Is he giving Cas to his friend?

“I’m going to go get a little piece of it and show you what I’m thinking,” Dean says before getting up from the table.

“Where are you going?” Cas screeches. He clears his throat, shocked that such a sound came from his mouth. “I’ll come with you.”

“I’m just going down to the beach.” 

As soon as Dean is out of sight, Bart gets up and brings the dishes to the sink area and turns to watch Cas. He licks his lips and sits on the floor across from him. With the wall of the cave at his back, Cas can’t get farther away without appearing to flee. Instead, he scowls and looks away. 

Bart speaks to him, his tone and inflection lewd and nasty. His hand drifts over his own chest as he talks, and then dips down over his crotch. Cas’s eyes are anywhere but on what Bart wants him to look at. He doesn’t want any part of this overture. 

How long does it take to grab something from their beach, anyway? It’s only a few hundred feet long, for fuck’s sake. Cas doesn’t know the best way to handle this situation. He doesn’t want to do anything to encourage the man, but he also doesn’t want it to continue. 

“Stop!” he finally exclaims, loud enough to catch the man’s attention. His hand stops its stroking over his dick, but then he laughs. He makes some filthy suggestion, it’s obvious with how he spits out each word, and returns to the leisurely pace of jerking off. Cas shakes his head and stands up. If he can’t make him stop, then he’ll leave.

As soon as he takes a step toward the cave opening, Bart stands as well. He is making it clear in the way that he lowers his head and flexes his fingers that if Cas tries to leave, he’ll stop him. Feeling cornered, Cas turns toward the fire, hunched over and feeling powerless. This is not a feeling that he is used to. He stands almost six feet tall and is well muscled. He’s a former soldier, and a trained fighter. Even if all of these things are true, he’s smaller than this man, this hulking beast, and the imbalance of power is not a welcome one. 

He’s felt small in comparison to Dean, but it is nothing like this. Whereas Dean is commanding only when they both feel the thrill of it, only uses his size and strength to impress Cas; this interaction is menacing and promises nothing but humiliation and pain. 

“Cas,” Dean is standing by his side, hand tenderly on his jaw to get his attention before he even realizes it. “What’s wrong?”

As he swallows down the nausea, he forces another smile. “Sorry, I’m just lost in my thoughts.” 

“Those aren’t good thoughts, whatever they are.”

Cas leans into Dean’s touch, and Dean furrows his brow. “You’re really warm. Are you sure you’re okay?” 

Laying a hand on his forehead to feel for a temperature, Dean is oblivious to the squirmy discomfort Cas is in. He doesn’t want to call any more attention to it, especially in front of someone like Bart, who is already taking too much interest in him. 

The slimy smile that lifts Bart’s cheeks sends red flags waving when he speaks to Dean. Dean’s head snaps over in his direction and then back to Cas. “Is that true?”

“I have no idea. What did he say?”

Dean leans in closer and says quietly, “He says that you’re sexually frustrated. That we walked in and interrupted you pleasuring yourself.”

Oh, that absolute bastard. Cas glares daggers at the man who grins and winks back. 

Cas turns back to Dean, his nostrils flared and seeing red. “I need to talk to you alone.” 

When Dean starts to argue that he can speak freely because Bart can’t understand them, Cas steps around him and walks all the way to the bath. He rounds on Dean, whose face has gone stony. 

“Your friend is being inappropriate, Dean. He’s been staring at me and touching himself. It’s disgusting.”

“Cas, you know that we have different ideas about modesty than humans. It’s what we fought about constantly for the first couple of weeks you were here, and the only reason that stopped was because of our sarong compromise.”

He crosses his arms and turns the full force of his glare on Dean. “If you think it’s appropriate to stroke your cock and lick your lips while staring at someone you don’t know, then we have bigger problems than Bart.”

Dean wrinkles his nose in disgust. “He really did that?”

“Yes. As soon as you walked away, he was making all kinds of lewd gestures. I don’t know what he said, but his intention was filthy.”

Dean rubs a hand down his face, exasperation and anger clear. “I’m sorry, Cas. I knew he’d like you, you’re exactly his type, but I swear; I had no idea he would be so…”

“Crass, rude, disgusting, vile,” Cas offers. 

Dean snorts in laughter. “Sure. All of those.” 

Leaning into Cas’s space, he brushes his lips, feather-light, against Cas’s. “I’ll go throw him out.”

  
  


*****

  
  


Cas busies himself with cleaning the dishes while Dean talks to Bart out on the beach. He can hear the anger of their words ramp up as the conversation continues. Finally, he hears Dean stomp back into the cave, a wave of fury preceding him. He’s still in the midst of a tirade the likes of which Cas has never seen before. He’s rattling off all kinds of curses in his native tongue, pulling at his hair and pacing back and forth. 

“Come sit with me,” Cas says and takes his hand. They sit at the table, Dean still distracted by the chaos of thoughts storming through his mind. Cas rubs his hand, working out all of the stress in the muscles, which seems to work on the rest of his body at the same time. Minute by minute, Dean sags into relaxation. 

“I can’t believe that he would do that to you. We’ve been friends our whole lives, and I’ve never seen this side of him.”

Cas kisses the palm of his hand. “People can always surprise you.”

“Yeah, but to treat you like that in your own home? To try to steal my …” Dean stops, looking up. 

“Steal your what?”

Dean shrugs. “I don’t know the word in English. I don’t even know anything close.”

“Explain it?”

Dean bites his lip and scrutinizes Cas. After a heavy moment, he begins. “I need to tell you that I feel very strongly for you. I believe the English word is love?”

Cas flushes and blinks rapidly. “Uh, yes. That’s right.”

“In my culture, when two people love and live together, they are considered bound. They are treated like one person from that point on. There are no decisions that one would consider without the other. There are no associations, no knowledge, that are not shared between them.”

“That sounds like marriage, but maybe stronger.”

“Marriage.”

“Yes, two people stand up in front of their family and friends and commit their lives to each other.”

Dean smiles. “That sounds nice. We don’t have a gathering like that. It’s just decided between the two people binding themselves to each other.”

He continues his explanation by saying, “When you introduce people to the one you have bound yourself to, you call them your ‘One’.”

His cheeks glow red and he looks down self-consciously. “That’s how I introduced you to him. I told him that you were my One.” 

When he looks back up, Cas is all smiles. “You did?”

“Yes. Is that okay?”

Cas pulls him into a hug, his heart singing at this proclamation. For Dean, it sounds like this is as good, if not better, than a marriage proposal. “Of course it is. I’m honored.”

They cling to each other, happiness arcing between them like electricity. The unfortunate matter at hand puts a damper on it soon enough. 

“So, you see why what he did is so hard to believe. He knew how important you are to me, and he tried to take you from me. That isn’t right.”

Soothing him with gentle words and touches, Cas gets closer and closer, until he drifts into Dean’s reach and he snatches him off the bench and drags him into his lap. The air is filled with an undignified, very high-pitched squeak that Cas denies came from him, and Dean is laughing too hard to push the issue. Cas turns himself to straddle Dean’s lap, bringing their bodies to fit together like pieces of a puzzle. Cas grins at the delighted sound coming from Dean. In some ways, he is such an innocent. He finds joy in the simplest of things, and Cas can’t help but see the world differently through his eyes. 

There is no pretense with Dean. What you see is what you get. It’s so simple and pure, and Cas is getting caught up in his feelings for this man again. He knows that Dean senses the shift in the air, that he shares his physical interest, but he lets his gaze drop first. He clears his throat before continuing, “I’m sorry that he tried to embarrass you on top of everything else.”

“What do you mean, Dean?”

“He tried to get me to believe that you were pleasuring yourself before we came home. He obviously-”

Dean trails off when he sees the bright glow of humiliation flush Cas’s cheeks. “Wait. He was right?”

Cas opens his mouth to say something, but he just flushes deeper. Finally, he squeezes his eyes tight so he doesn’t have to see Dean while he admits, “I didn’t know you’d have anyone with you. How could I know? You’ve never brought someone else here.”

Dean is blinking rapidly, processing while in stunned silence. 

“Say something, please.”

“Why didn’t you wait for me? You know I will always take care of your needs.”

Cas sighs in relief. “I was trying to seduce you!”

When Dean catches on, his eyes slide to half-mast. “Yeah? I was wondering why you were using all the lamps at once.”

“I was setting the mood,” Cas replies, his eyes dropping low, too. “I was getting myself ready for you so that when you came through the door, you wouldn’t be able to resist me.”

“Oh, Cas. I can never resist you.”

“I wasn’t taking any chances.” Cas licks his lips, drawing Dean’s attention like a gunshot.

Looking faintly desperate, Dean pleads, “Tell me what I would have seen. Tell me what you were doing before we interrupted you.”

Cas lets his thumb rub across Dean’s plush bottom lip as he shifts in his lap. “I was on my knees, spread wide. I was thinking about you touching me, how much I needed you.”

Dean grips his hips roughly and huffs out a little growl, but keeps listening. 

“I was almost open enough for you. I wanted you to be able to just slide deep inside when you came home.” Cas can see that his visuals are tightening the leash on Dean’s restraint. If he keeps pushing him, that leash is going to snap. He grins wide and leans in to whisper the rest. 

“I had two fingers slick and gliding in and out of my hole when I heard your voice. I almost called out to you. I wanted you so badly, Dean.”

Cas is suddenly wrapped up in two incredibly strong arms and lifted as Dean stands with him and just takes. His kiss is harsh and needy, his hands gripping his ass tightly. In the next moment, they are turned and Cas is laid out on the table, Dean boxing him in and dropping nipping kisses all along his neck. The sawing breath churning his lungs is blowing delicious heat over Cas’s skin, raising goosebumps and hardening his nipples. 

  
  


“Do you still?” Dean pants out and looks up the long line of Cas’s body. “Do you still want me that badly?”

“Always, Dean,” Cas promises in his gravelly timbre. “There’s nothing I want more.” There is sincerity and aching sweetness in his words, and Dean gets lost in his eyes. Cas doesn’t rush him. Needy doesn’t begin to cover how desperate he feels, but this moment is so pure that he doesn’t want to shatter it. 

“You’re so beautiful, Cas,” he whispers as his hands separate Cas’s knees and push his legs up and out. His reverent palms slide down the backs of his thighs as Cas reaches for him. They meet in the middle, their lips building and stoking the fire between them again. 

Frantic, mewling breaths gasp out whenever they change angles. Cas has both hands fisted in Dean’s short hair, holding him in place as he slips inside. With his very recent stretching and loosening, Cas can easily take the slight burn of Dean pushing through his rim, especially since Dean’s always incredibly slick with precome. Cas is certain that it has to do with his other form, but now isn’t the time to mention it. He’s just going to appreciate the thick lubrication as his sweet beast of a man takes him.

In a matter of seconds, Dean’s hips are snapping into him; the sounds registering like slaps as they bounce around the rock walls. With every thrust, Cas is filled so beautifully, so perfectly, that it rips the breath from his lungs. His back arches without him being conscious of it. Moans spill from his lips with every pounding stroke. 

“Dean,” he calls loudly. “Oh, god, Dean. Yes!”

  
  


Cas isn’t concerned about his back spasming against the unforgivingly solid wood of the table. He isn’t concerned about his legs aching from being bent up over Dean’s shoulders and spread insanely wide for the past twenty minutes. He isn’t even concerned that tears have been flowing from his eyes since he came untouched a few minutes ago, and Dean has been kissing them away as he continually changes the pace and intensity of his thrusts. His only concern is watching Dean throw his head back and shake through the delicious orgasm that has him in its grip. 

There is something else that he should have been concerned about, if only he had known it was there, camouflaged in the shadows.


	4. Plains Raised above Waves, Forming the Naked Surface of Earth

  
  


_Your whole force heads for its origin._

_The husks that your load threshes,_

_are only the crushed, plundered, deliveries,_

_that your act of abundance expelled,_

_all those that take life from your branches._

_Your form extends beyond breakers,_

_vibrant, and rhythmic, like the chest, cloaking_

_a single being, and its breathings,_

_that lift into the content of light,_

_plains raised above waves,_

_forming the naked surface of earth._

_You fill your true self with your substance._

_You overflow curve with silence._

  
  
  


As they lounge together in their hot spring bath, clean and sated, Cas finally finds the right time to talk to Dean about the other part of himself; the part that he has kept hidden for all these months.

Leaning his head to the side, Cas catches Dean’s eye from his resting place against his chest. “Can I ask you something, Dean?”

“Of course.” The fond little smile warms him as much as the water.

“Why don’t you ever change shape around me?”

The smile drops and Dean looks away self-consciously. “You wouldn’t like it.”

Cas sits up to turn his body. “What do you mean?”

“You were scared of me before. I don’t want you to be scared of me now.”

“Oh, Dean. Sweetheart, I was scared of the man that I thought was going to kill me. We couldn’t understand each other, so I had no idea what your intentions were.”

Dean huffs indignantly, which Cas thinks is a little off the mark. He did bring him here without a single thought about his consent or wishes. 

“I would never want to harm you,” he pledges emphatically.

“Well, I know that now, but I didn’t then.” Running his fingers over the surface of the water, he knows this is the perfect time to ask, “Why did you bring me here?” 

Dean cups his jaw, sliding his thumb across his cheek and the stubble there. “I wanted to help you.”

“But you didn’t know anything about me.”

“You were so alone, Cas. So incredibly lonely. Your music called out to me.”

Cas looks away from his knowing eyes, pulls away from his reach. He needs a minute to think about what Dean has said. Cas really was alone in the world. His entire family was gone, most of his army friends were either dead or living far enough away to be impossible to visit often, and there was really no one left in his small port town that he felt more than a passing interest in. 

The situation wasn’t likely to get any better, either, because he wasn’t interested in courting any of the young ladies in town for obvious reasons. Eventually, not starting a family would make him at best a curiosity, and at worst, more of an outcast than he already was. Looking into that future, Cas realizes that being here with Dean has changed the trajectory of his life in significantly positive ways. 

“I hadn’t really thought about it like that,” he admits quietly. “I was just living my life.”

“Did I do wrong?” Dean asks with attempted nonchalance. Cas knows him too well to be fooled, though. Dean is worried about his answer. In fact, as Cas swims back to him, he notices the tightness in his jaw and the pinched furrow in his brow. Cas is going to give him the truth he deserves.

“When you first brought me here, yes. I was terrified and angry, Dean. If you had told me that you wanted to befriend me, I would have been happy to get to know you.”

Dean’s eyes contain so much hurt that Cas has to fix it. He can’t let him stew like he wanted to. “But looking back, I see how much better my life is now. You made the right choice, I think, because now we are together, and I’ve never been this happy.” 

A quick twitch of Dean’s lips accompanies his relief. “I’m sorry that I scared you, Cas. I didn’t have a way to explain, and it killed me to see you hurting every day.”

Cas drops a delicate kiss on his lips, the steam of the spring making it damp and humid. 

“Are you happy, Dean?”

He kisses back, just as lightly. “I’ve never been happier. If I had known how wonderful living with you could be, I would have stolen you away much sooner.”

Cas barks out a surprised laugh. They stand and climb out of the bath, shaking off the excess water before wrapping a sarong around their waists. Walking down the narrow path requires them to walk one behind the other, so Cas snuggles up behind him. Wrapping his arms around Dean’s chest, he brings his own chest to Dean’s back as they walk in step. “How long had you been watching me?”

“Months. It was the part of my day that I most looked forward to.”

“That’s sweet, but a little creepy, too.”

Dean belly laughs as they turn the corner into their cozy den. He lifts Cas easily, encourages his legs to wrap around his waist. “I hear what you’re saying, but I want you to think about something before I shift in front of you again.”

Cas frowns but nods. In a few steps, Dean drops to his knees and lays Cas down gently on their bed. His arms framed by his head, he states, “We’ve been together for months, and you’ve never asked me about my other form. You’ve never mentioned it. Don’t you think that’s telling?”

“I didn’t want to intrude on something private, Dean.”

Dean’s eyes narrow. “There’s not much privacy between us, Cas. Why now?”

“I want to know you. Every part of you.”

Dean leans down and nuzzles into his neck to cause him to squirm away from the ticklish touch. “It’s late. Let’s get some sleep and we can talk about it in the morning?”

Cas sighs as Dean rolls over him and pulls their blanket up to cover them both. “I’m not going to forget about it. I think this is important.”

“I know, sweetheart. Now, go to sleep.”

  
  


*****

  
  


True to his word, Dean broaches the subject as soon as Cas has had some tea steeping in his favorite cup. They are across the table from each other, and even though his gaze is guileless, Cas is wary.

“You said last night that you want to know me. What do you want to know?”

“Anything. Everything.”

“Could you be a little more specific?”

Cas nibbles at the corner of his bottom lip as he thinks. “What are you?”

“I’m a Caecelia. We are water spirits.”

“Are there many Caecelia?”

Dean smiles. “Yes. We live everywhere the ocean can reach. There are thousands of us in this part of the ocean.”

Cas leans his chin on his hand, amazement evident on his face. “I can’t believe that there is an entire species that we know nothing about.”

“There’s a lot more than just one.”

At the tilt of Cas’s head, Dean waves off the comment. “That’s a topic for another time.”

“You said water spirits. Can you explain what that means?”

“We are responsible for protecting the oceans. We care for the animals, remove problems…” Dean trails off as Cas sits up straighter. 

“Is that why you leave in a hurry sometimes?”

It’s Dean’s turn to tilt his head in confusion. “I tell you when I leave that I have work to do.”

“Yes, but you’ve never told me what it is that you’re doing. I thought you were just wanting to get away for a while.”

Dean sighs and rubs a hand over his eyes. “I apologize, Cas. You never asked, so I didn’t think you were interested.”

Cas fidgets with his fingers. “Dean, I’ve been a complete ass. I’m the one who should be apologizing. You’re this mystical being whose job it is to protect the natural world, and I’ve been ignoring all signs of it and treating you like any other human so that I didn’t have to think about how different we are.”

“We aren’t that different, Cas.”

Cas scoffs. Loudly. “You can magically transform your body. You can camouflage your skin to blend into your environment. You can give me the ability to breathe underwater with a kiss. Who the hell knows what else you’re capable of because I’ve been such a dolt that I haven’t bothered to ask you.”

Dean takes his hands, shushing his sputtering while he rubs soothing designs on their backs. When he seems calmer, Dean continues.

“Yes, there are differences. But we’ve gotten to know each other really well over the past few months without that part of me being involved. Now, you can learn about that part as we go. There’s no need to take everything in at once.”

“So, there’s a lot more I don’t know?” Cas assumes.

The noncommittal gesture Dean makes tells him that he guessed correctly. It’s too much to contemplate now, so he focuses on the most immediate need.

“Will you change now? I want to see you.”

Dean nods and takes him out into the lagoon. Cas watches him shift, feeling a tickle of magic in the water around them. Dean hasn’t taken his eyes off Cas during the process, obviously not trusting his reaction yet. Once he’s satisfied that Cas isn’t going to run away screaming, he raises a tentacle out of the water, letting Cas tentatively touch the slick skin.

As the tips of his fingers wrap around the girth of his tentacle, Cas asks, “Do you feel them like you feel your arms?”

“They are also called arms, but they’re more sensitive actually. More like fingers.”

Cas raises his brow in interest as he moves his exploration to the rows of suckers underneath the thickest part of Dean’s tentacle. When he makes solid contact with one, it flattens enough to build pressure between it and his skin. The suction is mild, but it’s apparent, and as soon as one latches on, others cling to him like the antithesis of falling dominoes. 

“Are you controlling that?” Cas asks, his breath catching in his throat at the sensation. Picturing the feel of it all over his body, he shivers in response. 

“Yes and no. My instinct is to hold on to you, so my body is helping me do that, but I don’t tell the suckers to attach. Does it bother you?”

Cas meets his eye with blown out pupils. “No,” he is quick to reply. “I really like it.”

Dean smiles at the glazed look which makes him bolder. He lets his arms roam over Cas’s body. “Not all Caecelia shift to the same form,” he explains. “Some share features with eel or porpoise.”

“Do you share other features with the octopus?” Cas feels the long, slithering arms reaching his extremities, tangling around his own limbs and tightening. He’s lifted off his feet by them, buoyed by the water. It’s awkward at first, letting these foreign appendages keep him upright. But just like Dean’s fully human body, he is strong beyond belief and shows no sign of faltering. 

“Intelligence,” Dean smirks. “Obviously the camouflage and bioluminescence.” Dean pulls Cas closer to him, the wicked glee in his eyes making Cas’s heart race. If he didn’t trust Dean, that look would make him frightened of the position he’s allowed himself to be put in. 

“In this form, we also share sexual organs.”

“You - you don’t have…” Cas sputters. Dean shakes his head, letting Cas flounder for a minute before filling him in. “Octopus have modified arms called hectocotylus. They serve as both an arm and a penis.”

“Arm?” Cas whimpers as his eyes widen in shock. He feels vulnerable in a way he never has before. Exposed and unready for what Dean is hinting at.

Towering over him, Dean’s skin turns pale with an unearthly glow. “Some species have two.”

“You?” Cas manages, adrenaline and panic coursing through his veins. Dean nods his head with wicked glee. 

He leans Cas back against his supportive tentacles, reclining him at the perfect angle with both his wrists and ankles completely bound. Seeing his breathing turn rough and out of control, Dean shushes him and brings one of his arms up to caress his cheek. 

“I won’t do anything that you don’t want, Cas.”

“But?” Cas can tell that Dean is yearning for something. His eyes are lit with a molten fire, and there is a fine tremble in the tentacles holding him. 

“I would love to fuck you in this form.” The desperation in his tone is raw, like it’s been scraped from his very soul. 

Cas moans at the thought of being held down and fucked by not one but two of Dean’s tentacled arms while the others writhe all over him. 

“I know what I’m asking is a lot, baby. I want you to say no if you aren’t comfortable with it.”

As he spins farther and farther out of his depth, Dean’s tentacles are everywhere. The touches get progressively more intense. One of them tangles in his hair. Suckers are latching on to his thighs, spreading them open obscenely wide. One of the arms is creeping up his abdomen, trailing a thick, sticky shine. Cas immediately knows that this is one of Dean’s sex organs. It is leaking for him just like Dean’s cock. 

He watches it move with recognition and fondness. It rubs over his nipple with it’s ribbed and bumpy texture, making Cas call out, “Yes!”

Dean’s mouth drops. “Yes, you like the way that feels? Or yes…”

“Yes. Fuck me, Dean.”

Dean pulls him closer to plant a searching kiss on his mouth. “You are too good to me.”

Cas shakes his head, needing Dean to understand. “I really want to.” 

He takes the questing arm in his hands, stroking over the rounded tip and back over the thick ribs. He watches the fire flare in Dean’s eyes as he touches him. “I’ve been thinking about it, dreaming about it. I want all of you.”

Without looking away, Cas brings the dripping tentacle to his lips. He is so familiar with Dean’s human scent and taste that he can detect it underneath the heady tang of salt that marks this different form. Rubbing the viscous liquid on his lips, he delights in the response he receives from Dean. He moans long and deep, until his lungs must gasp to get enough air. Cas grips lower on the arm in his grasp so he can pull himself closer to Dean, wedging the slippery tentacle right up against his own hard cock. He can’t fit his hand fully around the thick part of the arm and himself, which sends another jolt of excitement through him. Cas licks at the secretion drying on his lips. Assuming that it’s the equivalent of pre-come, he isn’t really surprised by the taste. It’s less earthy and more briny, with a hint of sweetness he didn’t anticipate. 

Knowing what to expect now, he doesn’t hesitate to suck the sticky tip into his mouth. Dean’s eyes roll back as all of his arms reflexively tighten around him. “Oh, fuck. Cas.”

While he suckles this adventurous arm, he feels the sneakier one prodding at his hole, rubbing firmly at the muscle to loosen it. The texture is so unique that it steals Cas’s attention away from his current task. The forgotten tentacle doesn’t like being ignored, and it begins to move along his tongue with a fine tremor that feels like a buzzing or hum. It tickles in a stimulating way, and Cas caresses it’s length while it takes pleasure in the hot cavern of his mouth.

Dean’s suckers are pulsing and pulling on his skin in a thousand points of pressure. It’s confusing and overwhelming in so many wonderful ways. The arms supporting him are running along his skin, too. Cas wishes that he could slow down every second of this experience so that his overworked brain had time and capacity to focus on each and every sensation at once. 

When the slick tip of Dean’s other sex organ breaches his body, he chokes out a cry of pure pleasure around the flushed and glowing one in his mouth. It retreats out of his reach, cozying up with Cas’s very lonely cock.

“Dean, it’s amazing. There’s so much, so many fucking beautiful things happening at once. I love it.”

“There’s my Cas,” Dean chuckles. “As great as that felt, I missed your talking.”

As his gorgeous Caecelia pushes deeper into his body, the stretch is so delicious that his mouth drops open and his eyes drift closed. “So big, baby. I’ve never been this full.”

“You haven’t felt anything yet, Cas.” Dean’s chuckle is full of promise and pride. “Can you take some more?”

He nods, trying to pull his legs up to spread himself wider, but Dean’s arms are immovable. He fights their hold just to feel how strong they really are, and another bolt of lightning courses through his blood. “There’s no way I could get away from you right now.”

Dean narrows his eyes for a moment. “You know I would never…”

“I know, baby. I’m just in awe of that strength and power.” 

“Yeah? You like me holding you where I want you? Restraining you?”

“Yes,” Cas sighs out, giving himself over to the feeling now that he knows they are on the same page. He keeps testing the hold of Dean’s arms as he writhes in between the attentions of both of his sex organs. The one inside of him is moving slowly, so slowly that it’s maddening. The arms holding his legs spread wide have gained another interested appendage that is rubbing along that sensitive spot between his tightened balls and his open hole. 

All of the competing sensations are driving him towards the brink so fast that he’s dizzy with it. He’s never complained about having an orgasm, but this time, he fights it and declares with a clenched jaw. “No! I don’t want it to be over.” 

“It won’t be over,” Dean promises as he renews his efforts. “We’re just getting started.”

Cas nods in understanding before he throws his head back and comes, screaming Dean’s name. Just as his cock kicks out the first spurt of come, Dean lifts him easily and swallows him down. Moving from the chilly salt water to the molten heat of Dean’s mouth adds another layer to the sensory overload. Cas feels his eyes cross as he huffs out a whine. He looks down his body to watch Dean suck and lick him clean while his adventurous sex organ slithers along his cock, reveling in the creamy come. 

As he comes down from the intense wave, Cas strokes the bright, pulsing patterns on Dean’s skin. Dean doesn’t chase his own release, just nuzzles into Cas’s neck and caresses him until he’s come down from the incredible high. His fingers join in the delicate stroking, both along Dean’s neck and rubbing circles over the tiny suckers holding him.

“It might be a while before I’m ready again, but you know I don’t mind if you continue, Dean.”

“That’s nice of you to offer, but -”

“It’s selfish, really. I’m usually too preoccupied with how great you’re making me feel that I miss out on watching you.”

Dean kisses him sweetly on the lips. “Now that I’m sharing this part of my life with you, there’s something important I want you to see. Sex can wait.” 

Why would he ever deny Dean anything? ‘Never again,’ he thinks. He’s wasted too much time being selfish and suspicious already.

He smiles and says, “Of course, Dean. Let’s go.”

Dean kisses him with the magical salty kiss of air blown into his lungs and then they descend. They go so much deeper than Cas can believe before finally leveling out and exiting the cave. There’s no way he ever would have made it on his own. 

As soon as they emerge, the water around them brightens in the sunlight. Looking up at the surface, he realizes that he doesn’t have an accurate gauge of how far it is. It seems like a long swim, but it seems possible.

Dean guides Cas into his chest, tightening his arms around him so that he can swim more aerodynamically. Cas is content to let Dean do the work so he can look around. There are rocks scattered on the sandy floor beneath them, but the rocks are getting fewer and farther between as they leave the shelter of the sea mounts. Fish of every size and shape dart through the grasses, and even more congregate around the sporadic rocks. 

After what feels like it must be miles and miles of swimming, Cas sees another seamount that begins down in the murky abyss below and reaches almost to the surface. They swim over the caldera of the very active volcano, the heat of the water almost more than Cas can bear. He feels like they might boil alive. Even with his weak human eyes, he sees that the heated water is teeming with life. It’s so thick with plankton and other creatures that he hardly dares to breathe in. 

Dean brings him to the surface so they can talk, but Cas beats him to it. “Is that magma that is glowing down there? What are all those little things in the water? They’re too big to be plankton, right? Where are we?”

Cutting him off with a hearty chuckle and a kiss, Dean explains. “This is the newest island in the Indonesian Archipelago. It’s the next island to be born anywhere in the world, actually.”

Cas can tell by the look on his face that Dean feels pride for this almost island. While he is listening, he looks around and sees the distant shapes of far off islands. Did he say Indonesian?

“How are we in Indonesia, Dean? We were just in Oregon.”

Dean grins wide and shakes his head. “Actually, we haven’t been in Oregon since I brought you to my home.”

Cas’s eyes go wide with surprise. “I - I don’t understand. We were inside the mountain off the coast, weren’t we?”

“My home is both everywhere and nowhere. It exists outside of space.”

At the lost look on Cas’s face, Dean reels him in and plants a kiss on his forehead. “It’s part of being a guardian of the ocean, Cas. I have to be available to all of the ocean.”

“That’s an enormous area!”

“Yes, but we all have our specialties.”

“What is yours?”

Dean looks down into the water, another fond look of pride on his face. “I protect and nurture the islands that form in the ocean.”

“All of them?”

His beautiful green eyes lock on Cas. “Every last one. I raise them up from the sea beds and bring them to the surface. I populate them with plants and animals. I keep the humans away from them when I can. They are like my children.”

“Amazing,” Cas whispers, in awe of his magnificent lover. 

As Dean explains their surroundings, Cas can’t help reaching out to make contact with him. As soon as he touches one of Dean’s arms, the rest of them wind around him, stroking and sucking along his skin in an almost loving way. Cas tries to give all of his tentacles equal attention, but it becomes impossible to even recognize which ones he’s already touched when they are all in constant motion. 

While they are still on the surface, Dean explains that the water here is perfect for plankton, larval stages of crustaceans, cnidarians (which he explains is the name for the family of jellyfish and anemones, among others), and even fish and shark eggs. Lower on the seamount, some of the movement isn’t grass but huge schools of tiny fish that use the protection of the craggy volcanic rock as a nursery.

Once Cas is out of questions, which takes much longer than Dean anticipated, they go down and explore. Since they aren’t trying to swim quickly, Dean lets Cas float along just beneath him, letting his body’s ability to adjust its buoyancy to prevent Cas from floating up to the surface every time he breathes deeply. 

Some of the fish are so tiny that they are shimmering, darting glitter catching the light and disappearing within a blink. The colors and patterns are magnificent, both in the plants and animals here. In them, Cas sees versions of the patterns he has seen appear on Dean’s skin when he camouflages himself. 

He can hardly believe that the corals are alive like Dean had explained. They look like beautiful, intricately carved rock, but certainly not colonies of living creatures. Dean winks at him before taking him down to get a closer look. As his tentacles brush over the rock, Cas feels that tickle of magic drift over him. Soon, tentative, timid tentacles creep out of the little circular depressions in the rock. They all seem to be reaching for Dean, clamoring for his attention. As they extend their minute arms, he brushes over them again with the faintest touch. Cas smiles at this gentle beast who is always surprising him with his kindness. 

Cas wants to see if the coral tentacles feel like Dean’s, so he reaches out to feel them. Dean stops his questing fingers just in time. He shakes his head and gestures that they would hurt him. Distracting Cas away from the tiny corals, he points down lower. 

They descend into the darker water, and Cas realises that he can’t see well without the abundant sunlight. Dean must possess good night vision, because he doesn’t seem the least bit concerned about the sudden drop in visibility. His hold on Dean gets tighter, even against his will. This is a grand adventure; one that probably no other human has had the opportunity to have, so he’s not going to let his fear interfere. 

Dean swims over a ledge and swoops underneath. It’s even darker here, but they stop moving, so his eyes have time to acclimate to the dark. He almost wishes that they hadn’t. He is face to face with a very large shark. The more his eyes adjust, the more lumps he can make out in the shadows. Dean brought him to a den of sharks? Thoughts crowd and push and wave frantically for his attention. None of them make any sense, until Dean reaches out and pets the creature along the underside of its nose, just above its mouth. It moves then, like it had been asleep before. As soon as it starts to move, it bumps down Dean’s side, causing him to laugh and pet the creature fondly. 

Their little reunion, for it is obvious that Dean knows this animal, creates a stir in the den, and soon they are forced to back up and allow the rest of the creatures to come and give their regards. Cas has heard that sharks are vicious, that they are mindless killing machines, but it doesn’t appear to be the case at all. He relaxes as he watches them weave in and around Dean’s arms before one or two seem to take notice of him. The adventurous ones pass closer and closer to him before finally nudging at him.

When they all seem to have satisfied their curiosity, they wander away towards the sea floor and disappear into the shadows. Dean takes him back up the seamount, stopping about halfway to kiss him thoroughly.

When they surface, Cas is too overwhelmed to formulate words. He’s caught up in a tangle of adrenaline, wonder, and a vicious clash between what he knows of reality and what he is observing with his senses.

“You did very well with the sharks,” Dean comments, his eyes going heavy as he tangles himself around Castiel. There is promise in the way the tentacles push and tighten. Cas feels the energy shift between them; his own interest turns heavy and hot.

“Is that what’s gotten you so excited?”

“No, that is completely and totally you,” Dean confesses with a grin. “If you are still willing, I’d love to pick up where we left off earlier.”

“Here?”

Dean’s eyes blaze with desire before he nudges Cas’s chin up to give him better access to the strong column of his neck. “Yes. This place is sacred to me. I want to lay you out among the grasses and explore every inch of your body. I want to stretch you wide enough to take both of my cocks, and when we can’t take any more pleasure, I want to spill our combined seed here.”

“Christen the island,” Cas murmurs, already sinking into the blood-boiling, all-consuming lust. 

“What?” Dean lifts his swollen lips and glazed gaze to question. 

“Christening is having sex for the first time in a place; making it your own. It was a religious thing first, but over time it’s come to have a sexual meaning.”

“Christen…” Dean tries out the word, delight in his eyes. “Yes, I think this will be a new tradition, Cas. We’ll have to christen all of the islands.”

When he pulls back from Dean’s drugging kiss enough to breathe, Cas hums his agreement. “Lovely idea. How many are there?”

“Just over twenty-two thousand.” 

Correcting him gently, Cas replies, “Oh, Dean, I think you got the numbers mixed up. Remember that a thousand is ten groups of one hundred.”

“I know, Cas. I know exactly how many twenty-two thousand is.”

Cas gulps at the devilish intent on Dean’s face. “And we’re going to christen them all?”

Dean punctuates his words with deep, probing kisses. “Every. Last. One.” 

As he blows breath into Cas’s lungs, they sink into the water, floating down to the grasses below.

  
  


*****

  
  


Dean has kept up his keen interest in christening the islands for weeks, much to Cas’s delight. They started with Australia and New Zealand so that Dean could show Cas the most impressive reef on the planet. Swimming through the Great Barrier Reef had felt like a heavenly dream, and he is looking forward to returning during the spawn in October. While Dean can move through space magically, he is still bound by the laws of time, so he must wait for seasonal events just like everyone else.

He’s sure that they must have worked their way through half of the South Pacific by now. They split their time on land and in the sea, so they can explore the islands while they are there. Dean calls it recuperation time, but Cas recognizes it for the bluster it is. Dean puffs up with pride and satisfaction when Cas appreciates the beauty of each new island. Once he realized how it pleased Dean, Cas has made a concerted effort to observe and praise the unique qualities of each one- the shallow lagoons, vividly blue water, sky high palm trees, and sugary sand. 

Cas and Dean both fall asleep in the afternoon sun enough to wear the pink tint of it on their tanned skin more often than not. The fluttering and rustling of palm fronds is enough to rock them to sleep.

For once, Cas stayed at the cave while Dean left for what sounded like a true emergency. Apparently, whaling ships are disturbing an area near the Hawaiian Islands that is used as a nursery for Humpback whales. Cas would love to see the giant creatures, but he could tell from Dean’s brief, panicked tone that he can’t afford to be delayed in getting to the area. This isn’t a sight-seeing trip.

As Cas lounges in the warm water of their personal hot spring, he smiles at the thought that they don’t have to rush. They have years ahead of them for Dean to show him all of the beauty in the oceans. Rinsing the salt and sand from his body from their early morning tryst in the lagoon, Cas doesn’t even turn when he hears footsteps approaching. 

He simply calls out, “I can’t believe you’re back so soon, Dean. I guess it wasn’t as bad as you thought?”

“He won’t be back. Not for you.”

Cas startles at the unfamiliar voice and turns, catching his heel and tumbling back down into the water. His eyes meet and hold on the only other Caecelia he has ever met. Bart.

So many things are wrong with this scenario that Cas is struggling to catalog them all. Bart shouldn’t be here. Dean promised him that he had spoken to the council, which metes out both judgment and punishment for all of their kind. Bart shouldn’t be within a hundred miles of their home after what he did when he was here last. 

He’s also speaking English, which he could not do when they met. He remembers distinctly that Dean had to translate. 

“What- why are you here?” Cas tries for calm and cordial, but he’s certain that his tone is anything but. He wants to curl up to preserve his modesty, but he doesn’t want to be in a defenseless position, so he pushes himself to his feet despite his nudity. Bart’s eyes travel down his body in a sickeningly propriety way that makes Cas nauseated.

What makes it worse is that he can’t help but hear those ominous words repeating through his brain. ‘He won’t be back.’ With every iteration, his heart cracks a little more. What has this beast done? Is Dean hurt? Is he still alive? 

Cas backs up very slowly, trying to find the edge of the small pool and step over without taking his eyes off of the threat blocking his way down to his home. 

“I’m here to take you out of this place. I’m here to bring you home with me.”

Cas swallows past his hammering heartbeat when he realizes that he is completely at this creature’s whim. Even if he could get past him, he can’t swim deep enough to get out of the cave even if he could swim fast enough to evade him - which he can’t.

“I don’t want to leave here. This is my home. You know this.” His voice wobbles, but he tries to force as much steel into it as he can muster. 

“My home is better for you.”

Cas shakes his head and explains, “Dean is my One. I chose him and he chose me. We are a family now.”

“You chose him because you did not know me. That is all. Now I can fix your mistake.”

Cas continues trying to reason with this lunatic even though he knows it to be futile. What else can he possibly do? If he stalls long enough, Dean might get home before the situation escalates out of control. “I am in love with Dean. Do you understand what that means? I don’t want to be with anyone else.”

In the space of a heartbeat, the other man’s face warps into something dangerous and violent. “You will love me. Only me.” As he speaks his impassioned words, he pounds on his own chest. “He is nothing. You will forget him.”

Cas rushes to get both feet on solid ground, keeping the bubbling pool in between them. He isn’t quite sure where the path behind him leads, but it’s the only way that takes him out of Bart’s reach. Screwing up his courage and all of the defiance he feels, he tells the delusional man, “I will never forget him. He is everything to me.”

When the enraged man takes a step forward, his jaw clenched in fury, Cas darts up the path that winds farther into the mountain. Without his torch, the way is dark and treacherous. Still, any danger is better than ending up in that lunatic’s grasp. The path narrows as it wraps tighter into the core of the rock. ‘Please, please do not let this be a dead end,’ he prays as he staggers over another loose rock. 

His racing heart makes his breathing erratic and gasping. The adrenaline kick is clearing out cobwebs from parts of his brain that he hasn’t used in ages. Fight or flight instincts, strategic planning from his military days, and all of the dirty fighting techniques he learned as a child, rush to his aid. 

Moving slowly enough not to knock himself out by running into the walls, but quickly enough to stay ahead of Bart, Cas is lost in his panic. He can’t trust his senses. He doesn’t know where he’s going. He doesn’t have any plan at all. Just stay out of his reach. He can’t even hear movement behind him, so heavy and labored is his own sawing breath. 

Cas knows from experience how strong Dean is. He can only assume that Bart is just as strong. Once those hands get a grip on him, he won’t have the power to get away. He doubts that he’ll have the opportunity to distract him, either.

On his next turn, his vision adjusts enough that he can see the shapes of things against the darker shadows. He takes the advantage and runs with it. Literally. His steps pound against the packed earth as he careens around another corner just as he feels the movement of air behind him. Shit. He’s losing his head start. The next corner is even lighter, and suddenly, Cas realizes that it isn’t his eyes adjusting. There is light ahead.


	5. The Space of your Crystal Completeness

_The vessel trembles with your salt and sweetness,_

_the universal cavern of waters,_

_and nothing is lost from you, as it is_

_from the desolate crater, or the bay of a hill,_

_those empty heights, signs, scars,_

_guarding the wounded air._

_Your petals throbbing against the Earth,_

_trembling your submarine harvests,_

_your menace thickening the smooth swell,_

_with pulsations and swarming of schools,_

_and only the thread of the net raises_

_the dead lightning of fish-scale,_

_one wounded millimetre, in the space_

_of your crystal completeness._

_~ Pablo Neruda_

Dean races through the water, realizing that he just might get back to his home too late. The thought nauseates him. To be honest, he’s never been this terrified in his life. If anything happens to Cas because he was oblivious to the warning signs, he will be destroyed. He would never recover from letting down his One in such a fundamental way. Protecting Cas should always be Dean’s first instinct. How is it possible that he’s been this out of sync with real dangers to his chosen family?

There have been signs, which is what infuriates Dean so much. First off, Bart’s behavior when he brought him home to meet Cas was horrifying. Then, when they were called before the council to answer the charges Dean brought against him, the degenerate wasn’t the least bit apologetic. In fact, he had gone on and on about how Cas would be his one day. Dean knows Cas and trusts him, so he thought that Bart’s raving was just that; the incoherent babbling of a delusional man. 

Since then, he’s felt eyes on him several times, but again, he had just ignored it as paranoia. But when he arrived in Hawaii today, there weren’t any whaling ships, and there weren’t any Humpback calves. He was confused, but assumed that the problem had resolved itself, however unlikely. Then there was something blocking his way back through the rift. Without having access to the rift, he couldn’t travel back through the oceans with the ease and speed of magic. He had to swim through a hundred more miles of open ocean before he came across another access point. 

Now, as he ascends into the cavern where he’s created a home with Cas, he strains his ears to listen. Even when Cas is home alone, music surrounds him. Either he is playing his beautiful cello, humming, or singing. There is hardly a quiet moment, which Dean has always found charming. The lack of music now is as deafening as a shrill scream, and it sets Dean’s teeth on edge just as much. It sets off a queasy feeling that he’s arriving in the aftermath.

He wants to run into their home, but he needs to be smart. If he’s taken unaware, if Bart has set another trap for him, he won’t be able to protect Cas. 

  
  
  


*****

  
  


Cas makes it to the crack in the rock where the light is coming from. He wiggles and pushes and scrapes his way through, even as he feels a hand grab onto his wrist. He yanks it viciously out of Bart’s hold and runs. 

The wind is blowing hard up here, swirling his hair around his head in a whirlwind. He comes to the end of the path at a steep cliff whose dizzying heights end in an avalanche of rocks littering the water below. Shit. There has to be another path. He finds a thinner, more angled way through the tall grasses and sparse trees that have grown in this inhospitable place. Crawling over larger rocks and sliding down to put his feet back on the ground wouldn’t be a big deal if he wasn’t doing this completely nude. As it is, by the time he comes to the end of the path, his hands and thighs sting from the abrasions. 

Even worse than the sharp-edged discomfort, his path has ended into the main one that he used to run out of the mountainside. In one direction, there is certain death, but in the other lies fear and uncertainty. His heart drops at the realization that he’s going to have to go back down the hill and chance running into Bart. As quietly as he can, he pads along the path with his ears alert.

The impact is jarring, especially because there wasn’t even a whisper of sound to alert him that it was coming. Stinging starts up again in his hands as dirt grinds into the multitude of cuts. Air was knocked out of his lungs by his landing, and he is still compressed from the weight of the man on top of him, so he must fight both to pull necessary air into his body and knock the unwanted weight from him.

He twists, bucks, and rolls, all while seeing black spots dance in his field of vision. He manages to shove his way up to his knees, only to be pulled back into Bart’s lap.

“Stop fighting this, Cas. It’s happening.”

“No!” he vehemently shouts as he claws to extricate himself from Bart’s grasp. In just a blink, the man’s grip is aided by several short tentacles. Fuck. He isn’t sure why he hadn’t thought that Caecelia could shift on land. Dean never has, but that certainly didn’t mean it was impossible. 

“You’re surprised. He withholds this form from you?” Indignation at Bart’s smug chuckle renews Cas’s fight. He doesn’t answer. Gritting his teeth, he slams his head backwards into Bart’s face. Stars cloud his sight, but the arms relax their hold on him, so he takes every bit of advantage. He hears a foreign curse as he scrambles to his feet, but he can’t worry about that. Instead, he runs back toward the safety of his home where they have any number of things that he could wield as a weapon. 

In an embarrassing few steps, he is snatched off of his feet and slammed into a large rock on the side of the path. Immediately, a hand braces against the back of his neck, shoving his face into the rock while the short tentacles pull his hands behind his back and hold them there. Cas is pissed off that while breath is sawing in and out of his lungs, Bart isn’t the slightest bit winded. He’s annoyed enough to make him want to bring this man down a peg or two.

“Why are your arms so small?” Cas snarls as he struggles to get out of Bart’s grasp. 

“They are exactly the right size for a squid, which is the animal I share forms with.” 

“Squid? Like bait?” Cas scoffs.

The warning growl from behind him sends his heart racing. He should be attempting to placate the man, but instead he is trying to goad him into a fight. A fight Cas has no hope of winning, and isn’t that just a bitter pill to swallow?

Cas knows that Bart doesn’t just want to take him away from this place. He is aware that he sees Cas as a conquest. It isn’t until he feels the other man’s erection nudging against his thigh that it all truly kicks into clarity. He can’t make himself roll over and show his belly, no matter how much easier this might go if he did. He refuses to be a simpering weakling, despite how physically weak he is in comparison. Perhaps he can reason with him, though.

“Why do you want someone who doesn’t want you? I will never change my mind. Even if you take me to your home, I will fight you constantly. I will gain my freedom somehow, or I will die trying. And when I get free from you, do you know where I will go? Here. I will run back to Dean the second I am able.”

With every statement, Bart’s grip tightens on his body. As soon as he brings up Dean’s name, Bart shouts in his native language. He lays himself over Cas’s back, snapping fury and hideous intention in his tone. 

“I am twice the man he is. He does not deserve such a beautiful prize.”

“I am not a prize. I’m a man, just like you.”

If he was smart, he would change tactics. He would stop antagonizing him and start appealing to whatever sense of decency he might possess. He just can’t force anything other than vitriol past his lips.

Cas shouts and renews his barrage of physical and verbal assault. “You disgust me. Your touch makes my skin crawl. I will never willingly let you have any part of me.”

Cas has skin and blood under his nails from digging into his captor’s arms where he can reach. He has bruises up and down his body from being slammed into the ground and rocks. His strength is fading, and he knows it. 

He cries out when Bart kicks his legs apart, widening his stance. Hot breath scalds his ear with the sickening reply. “Then I will take you unwillingly. It’s all the same to me.”

“No, Bart. Stop. Please. Don’t do this. I’ll come with you, but you can’t do this to me.”

The dark chuckle sends a nauseating shiver down his spine. “Yes, I can.”

Cas retches when he feels the man’s hips rock back against him. The panic in his blood is tying his stomach into knots. He is entirely helpless despite years of training and a lifetime of independence. He’s enraged at this man, this beast. How dare he treat him like a plaything, like he doesn’t have a mind of his own. How dare he hold him down and try to take what Cas is denying him. He would gladly end Bart’s life if he could. But, he can’t. Again, it is his powerlessness that sickens him the most. 

When it becomes clear that Bart is going to rape him and there’s nothing he can do to stop it, he decides to go out swinging. He says a little prayer that Dean finds happiness again before he braces a foot against the rock and uses every bit of his waning strength to push Bart back.

He’s standing almost upright before Bart bashes his head into the boulder he’s being pinned to again. Spots dance in his eyes and a loud ringing blocks out most of Bart’s laughter.

“I can fuck you whether you are awake or unconscious, so please, keep testing me.”

“I would have to be unconscious to allow it,” Cas battles back, his words slurring and fainter. He is gasping for breath, pain throbbing through his broken body along with the rhythm of his heartbeat, but he’s distracting Bart enough to stall him. 

“Here, let me help.” Bart whispers in his ear, the words almost lost to the annoying hum in his skull. One of his free arms comes up around Cas’s neck and starts to tighten. At first, it just tips his head up and makes his eye sockets join in the ‘woosh, woosh’ throb of his heart. He almost welcomes the imminent, blissful black of sleep as an escape from the pain. It would definitely be easier than remembering this vile hour, than being present for the ultimate insult to his body and his spirit.

Fighting for oxygen does something to Cas that he didn’t anticipate. It sends a shock of lightning through his veins, giving him strength he didn’t possess a second ago. He thrashes in the beast’s hold, desperate to get rid of the relentless squeeze against his throat. His will to remain unviolated is strong, his will to live even stronger. 

Renewed energy allows him to throw himself to the side just as an inhuman roar reaches his ears. It’s hard to place with his head swimming in a fog of agony, but he realizes enough to know that it didn’t come from behind him. It came from a distance away. Hope, fragile and weak, blooms in his chest. 

He is released in the next moment, completely free from Bart’s touch for the first time in what feels like an eternity. Falling to his hands and knees, he trembles to hold himself up. He can hear the rage in Dean’s voice, and his body floods with relief. Dean is finally here. He knows that Dean loves him and will fight for him. He doesn’t have to be strong anymore. He doesn’t need to keep hurling himself into the monster’s path to distract him from his true agenda. He can stop taking this beating and just rest. Still, he can’t look away from the clash of titans happening in front of him.

They are speaking their own language, so Cas can’t understand anything but the furious tone. He has never seen Dean like this before. His skin is pulsing in a pattern of glowing white and deepest red stripes, like lightning mixing with the night sky. He is in his other form, his arms waving menacingly at Bart. The moving pattern of his skin is mesmerizing, and it certainly seems to be putting the other man under its spell. Bart is hardly moving as this enormous threat approaches with murderous intent.

Cas lays down on his side and watches as Dean stalks his prey. Bart keeps backing up, his hands raised either to be placating or in supplication, it is hard to be sure. Cas blinks, his eyes heavy enough to struggle against the weight of his own eyelids. When he hears the pitiful sounds of begging and whimpering, he forces them open in time to see Bart completely entangled in Dean’s arms, bound and defenseless as he is lifted in the air and dangled over the cliff. 

He wishes that he felt repulsed by the blood pouring from the man’s multiple new wounds. He wishes that he didn’t feel satisfaction when Dean tosses Bart off the edge of the cliff. He wishes that he could stay awake.

  
  


*****

  
  


Dean is frantic. Cas is not recovering from his attack. Instead, he seems to be sinking deeper and deeper into the trauma. Dean can’t make himself leave his side, but it is obvious that Cas doesn’t want him there. The closer Dean gets, the more he curls in on himself. It is breaking his heart, but it scares him more than anything. He wants to help Cas get back to himself, and nothing he does is helping. 

After Bart’s death, he was called before their council to answer for his actions. Based on his story and the previous complaint against Bart, they had let the matter go. They still wanted to discuss the matter with Cas, but Dean couldn’t get him out of the cave, let alone in front of a council leagues away underwater. Finally, one of the members agreed to come to them and have a more informal chat. 

She is due to arrive any minute now, and Cas won’t get out of his bed. His bed because Cas won’t sleep next to Dean anymore. He wakes up with nightmares almost every night, and Dean isn’t allowed to hold him. He can’t even touch him without Cas flinching away. 

Cas has abandoned his cello as well. There is no more music in his world, and it is tearing Dean apart. He understands that his One is suffering, but his own helplessness is driving him mad. He has been completely shut out of every part of Cas’s life that matters. Something has to give.

  
  


*****

  
  


Cas panics when he hears a stranger’s voice. He is vulnerable here in bed, naked and without a weapon except for the bone knife that Dean had given him after the…attack. Why didn’t Dean warn him? Why would he bring someone here when he knows what happened the last time a Caecelia walked into his home?

He blinks away the fuzziness and realizes that Dean has tried to get him up for what must be hours. He tried to get him to take a bath and he tried to entice him to eat something. Cas didn’t acknowledge that he was even speaking. He is not handling his impotence well. His inability to protect himself exposed a crack that has let every other feeling of worthlessness inside to fester. 

It’s not Dean’s fault. Dean only came to his aid. He slayed Cas’s dragon for him, and he’s been nothing but patient and kind since. Cas can’t help that his brain is incapable of switching out of flight mode. He is in constant battle-readiness, waiting for another attack to come. 

The worst part of this horrible, sordid mess, is that Cas can’t stand to be touched after what Bart tried to do to him. He is terrified all the time, and that fear extends to Dean as well. Rationally, he trusts Dean completely. He’s in love with him, and wants to spend his life by his side. The reality is that he hasn’t let Dean within a few feet of him since he woke up after the attack. 

“Cas, my friend is here to talk to you. Are you ready?”

Cas peeks out of his blankets to see a lovely woman who is wearing a sarong much like what they wear around their home. She wears a soft smile on her face which is filled with patience. Sitting up, Cas pulls his blanket around him and acknowledges her with a slight nod. 

She speaks gently, her blonde hair bouncing with her animated speech. Dean smiles at her and then translates for Cas.

“She said that she is sorry for what happened to you. She asks if there is anything they can do for you?”

Cas looks to Dean, meeting his eye for the first time in days. “What could they possibly do?”

For the hundredth time since tossing Bart to his demise, Dean is at a complete loss. Watching his beloved Cas disintegrate from within is more painful even than seeing him moments away from being raped. Dean can’t even formulate an answer for him, just gapes at him like a fish. 

Letting him off the hook, Cas shakes his head and says, “Tell her, ‘thank you’.”

After her next bit of conversation, Dean tells Cas that she wants to read his hands. Cas doesn’t understand, but nods his consent. She kneels beside him and holds her hands out, patiently waiting for him to place his hands in hers. It is ridiculous to him how much effort it takes to follow through with the simple request.

She runs her fingers over his palms, staring intently at them. He cringes, setting his jaw to force himself not to move, no matter how much he wants to pull away. She murmurs several things under her breath, but Dean doesn’t translate. He’s too busy listening to what she is saying. He obviously respects her opinion, and gives this practice some credence. It seems a little hokey to Cas, but he isn’t going to make fun of their beliefs. Finally, he reminds Dean of his translating duty. 

“Sorry, Cas. What she says is important. I wanted to take it all in.”

“What does she say? Am I broken?” Making light of the situation seems the only way to handle it when he is the focus of such intense scrutiny.

“You are not broken. You are hurting. You will heal.”

“Are those her words?”

“No, they are mine.”

Cas scoffs. “Yes, I’m doing a marvelous job of it so far, aren’t I?”

Dean looks away, his face leaking too much emotion for their company to witness.

“She says that you have choices to make. You must decide where you belong because you are caught in between two worlds.”

“It is not my fault that I am not Caecelia. I am not made like you. I’m just human.”

“Hey, hey, sweetheart. It’s okay. No one thinks anything is your fault.”

“Stop treating me like I’m fragile, Dean.”

Dean’s eyes widen at the command. Cas has been nothing but fragile for weeks. Dean has been walking on eggshells, not knowing what is going to set him off. He has recognized a pattern to his comments lately. Cas has been focused on strength, weakness, being broken, and now fragile. Dean mentions it quietly to his friend, who looks up at him sadly. In their own tongue, she tells Dean, “You’re going to have to let him go. He has to repair his heart before he can give it to you.”

“What does that mean? He’s already given his heart. He is my One,” Dean argues.

“He is conflicted. He did not choose this life. You chose it for him.”

“What does that have to do with what he is feeling now? This is because he was attacked.”

“That is where most of the pain is coming from, but not all. He was powerless when you brought him here. He was powerless during the attack. He is a proud man, and these feelings are in conflict with how he sees himself.”

“Then I will give him-”

She covers his hands with her own and shakes her head vehemently. “No. You can’t do that now. It will not improve your relationship. It will only make him feel less, like he isn’t enough as a human.”

Dean looks at Cas, huddled and small in his cocoon. “I don’t think I can give him up.”

“Even if it is what is right for him? Even if that is the only way he will heal?”

A tear falls from Dean’s eye and he stares at the floor. He recognizes that he is being selfish. He doesn’t need an elder to point it out. If he is in any way responsible for Cas’s hurt, he will do what he can to fix it.

The elder pats Cas’s hands before kissing him on the forehead and whispering a blessing to him. The blessing is ancient, a parting prayer that asks that their ways be smooth until they meet again.

When she leaves, Cas asks him, “What was all the arguing about?”

He looks Cas over carefully before answering, “She and I don’t agree on the best way to proceed.” 

“I noticed that you didn’t translate that part.” Cas fidgets with a corner of the blanket that is unraveling. 

“She is wise, but in this case, I don’t agree with her. I don’t think she knows you well enough to make this decision.”

“You know who does?”

Dean waits patiently for him to answer. Raising his head, Cas puffs up his chest and glares, “Me.”

Dean can feel his heart free fall. The ache of losing Cas is going to destroy him. “I’m not saying that you can’t make your own decisions, baby.”

“Yes, you are. Neither of you consulted me during this conversation, and you were more than capable. What is it you don’t want me to know? What are you hiding?”

Dean lets Cas burn off some energy before he answers. Cas throws off the blanket and wraps the sarong around his waist, cinching it angrily before turning to face Dean with his hands on his hips.

“I’m not hiding anything. She thinks that I need to let you go. I don’t agree.”

“Why? Am I your prisoner after all?”

Dean doesn’t want their first real conversation in days, maybe even weeks, to be a fight. He brings his sad eyes up to meet the blue fire in Cas’s gaze. Dean feels his fragile heart crack under the assault. The poor thing doesn’t have many more defenses left since he gave it into Castiel’s hands.

“You were never my prisoner. I’ve told you this before, Cas. I brought you here because you were so alone and I could feel your pain. I wanted to be your companion.”

“You didn’t give me a choice!”

Dean closes his eyes, still not wanting to admit that she was right, despite all evidence to the contrary. Another tiny crack develops.

“You’re right. I didn’t. We didn’t speak the same language, and I didn’t know how else to get you here so we could get to know each other.”

“So you just decided for me, like what I wanted didn’t matter.” 

“I’m sorry,” Dean says earnestly. “I never meant to hurt you, Cas.”

“Really? Did that thought even occur to you at all? Or did you just think that you’re a powerful Caecelia and you know what’s best for everyone else?”

“Cas, I don’t -” 

“Because it seems like that’s a common trait among your kind. Take what you want and the rest be damned.”

Dean has been calm during this tirade because everything Cas has said up until now has its roots in truth. His perceptions might be off, but he’s not wrong. Now, though, he’s lashing out and trying to make Dean feel badly. Fissures are developing all over the surface now. 

“Are you honestly comparing me to your attacker?”

Cas crosses his arms over his chest. “You were friends not that long ago, and you seem to be operating under the same delusions of grandeur.”

Anger is clouding his judgment now. He would never try to rape someone. How dare Cas group them together like that. He decides to cut to the heart of the matter. “Do you want to leave?”

“I want to have a choice, Dean. I want free will, and I don’t want other people deciding what happens to me. I want to be treated like an equal.”

“I treat you as an equal. You are my beloved One. I would do anything for you. You know that.”

Cas looks away, confusion etched into his brow. Dean listens to his own words. If he would truly do anything for him, then he needs to do the hardest thing. Tears filling his eyes, he blinks them away and holds a hand out for Cas to take. He looks at it suspiciously, which creates yet another rift in Dean’s hemorrhaging heart. Dropping his hand, he woodenly tells Cas to follow him. 

In the water of the lagoon, Dean waits until Cas feels confident enough to wade out to him. Dean looks into the eyes of the man he loves, wishing that he still looked at him with adoration and desire instead of this thinly veiled hostility. He wishes that they weren’t saying goodbye. 

“Why are we out here, Dean?”

“I’m giving you what you asked for. I’m giving you your choice.” He pretends that his voice doesn’t crack and that the saltwater decorating his cheeks comes from the ocean below. Not wanting to hear any more disapproval in Cas’s voice, he takes his hand and descends into the abyss. 

When they are completely submerged, Dean taps his lips but doesn’t try to move toward Cas. He knows that his touch is not welcome, and he will never force it on him, even if it is the only way the human can survive this trip. Cas is going to have to come to him. 

His heart shatters as the seconds tick by. Cas isn’t moving closer, and in fact, looks more and more terrified. Dean had no idea that Cas is so repulsed by him now. It stings bitterly, but it confirms that he is doing the right thing. Finally, Cas kicks closer to Dean and pulls their mouths together with a firm grip behind Dean’s head.

This is the last time he will kiss Cas, so he puts all of his love and devotion into what should be a perfunctory method of letting Cas breathe underwater. Squeezing his eyes shut, he focuses on memorizing the feel of Cas’s lush lips, the heat of his mouth, the addicting taste of him. Too soon, it is over and Cas pushes away. Normally, he tucks Cas’s body beneath his as he swims, tightening his arms around him to keep him steady and let him glide. Today, he lets Cas hold on to his hand and he keeps his tentacled arms far behind them. He knows that the reminder of his other form is not going to do anything but scare Cas right now.

  
  


*****

  
  


When they surface in the same spot where Dean took him all those months ago, Cas walks unsteadily onto the shore before he turns and smiles at Dean.

He knows that he’s pushed Dean away for weeks, that his darling love, his hero, has taken the brunt of his fear and anger. It hasn’t been fair of Cas, but he needed somewhere for the weight of the pain to go before it crushed him. Sweet, patient Dean hasn’t pushed him, which lets him distance himself more and more. Not that it is in any way his fault. Cas’s downward spiral has been horrible, and completely of his own doing. Well, it was caused by Bart’s actions and his despair at being so helpless, but the aftermath has been of his own making.

When they descended in the lagoon, he realized that he would have to kiss Dean so that he could breathe in the ocean. The guilt of taking that kiss was nearly his undoing. He stared into those sad eyes and just couldn’t take anything else from Dean. The sadness is completely his fault. The weeks of discomfort, pain, and separation have hurt Dean tremendously, and Cas has so much to make up for. 

When he knew he couldn’t hold out any longer, he took the kiss that he had been withholding from the love of his life all these long days. It brought such perfect relief that he almost cried out at the bliss of it. If drowning hadn’t been a distinct possibility, he would have given him all of his apologetic and loving words then. He will let Dean say what he brought him here to say, and then he will start the long process of making things right between them again.

He recognizes this journey for the symbolic gesture that it is, and wants to give Dean the opportunity to follow it to its conclusion. He waits for Dean to ask him if he wants to come with him, to live with him and be a family. He waits for the choice to be offered so that he can happily accept it. 

That isn’t what happens. Dean looks utterly devastated as he swallows around a lump in his throat. “You have my love forever. Goodbye, Cas.”

He is so shocked, so blindsided by the turn this day has taken, that at first he can only stand there mute. When Dean slips back into the water, Cas comes alive and screams. 

“No! Dean!”

He dives into the water, unconcerned by its shallowness or the abundance of rocks. He has picked up exceptional swimming skills in his time with Dean, and he uses every one of them to try to catch up with him. It is an impossible task, trying to keep up and overtake a creature made for swimming the world’s oceans. He doesn’t give up until he can barely lift his arm out of the water to take another stroke. If he doesn’t stop Dean now, he might never be able to get back to him. 

Treading water to conserve energy while he searches for any sign of Dean out here in the open water, he knows that he is long gone. Tears spill over the edges of his eyes, mixing with the rest of the salt water buoying him up. Loss and regret wring the sobs from his throat. 

Floating on his back, he paddles back to shore, giving in to his misery and wailing his pain to the sky. He hits his head on a rock after a long, slow return trip and finally puts his feet on the ground. Staggering out of the water now, he has a small audience on the path. Hearing the bells in the distance, he looks up to check the position of the sun. It is close to noon. Wonderful. He’s just in time for the crowd leaving the church, apparently. 

None of these people have ever been friends of his. His family was not religious, and therefore, they were considered heathens and degenerates. If they hadn’t also been talented musicians, he is certain that these people would have given his family enough of a cold shoulder to make them seek a home elsewhere. He had seen it happen to others over the years. 

The only people left in this judgmental, narrow-minded place that he trusts are the Harvelles. Walking up to the pathway in nothing more than a soaking wet and clinging sarong, Cas tilts his head up with haughty pride and marches himself down the walkway toward their boarding house. He isn’t the slightest bit concerned about the groups of proper church-goers that scatter when he shakes his head to rid himself of the heavy droplets of water.

  
  


*****

  
  


The Harvelles had been ecstatic to see him, despite his waterlogged state of undress. Over time, he realized that they had been his sole champions, practically forcing the sheriff to look into his disappearance. Everyone else in town had assumed that he either left under cover of night, or had met some tragic fate. Although they had packed up his belongings and put them in storage after the first month, they held out hope that he would return. 

They had no more rooms for rent when he showed up dripping on their rug, but they let him stay in their own private quarters while he readied his plan. He most definitely needed a plan. He told them what he could about Dean, leaving out the parts that made him sound like a lunatic. There was no mention of tentacles or magic rifts in the ocean that sent him around the world. He spoke instead of the man with a laugh that came from his soul, of his infinite gentle patience, and his beauty that rivaled the gods. 

Jo and Ellen helped him launch his little boat filled with his sparse belongings wrapped in waterproof skins. He also packed some things that he found to be essential. He had missed very few modern conveniences while living with Dean, but he had missed his modern razor on a daily basis. A few volumes of stories and poetry, two very nice bottles of bourbon, a high quality world map, and a box of map pins also made their way into his laden vessel. 

Saying a proper goodbye this time, Cas hugs both of the women, promising to visit and bring Dean with him next time. With a good shove, the boat slides away from the shore, and he is on his way back to the life that he is choosing.

Getting back to the seamount is the easiest part of this journey, and the only part of his plan that he is sure about. Dean had told him that his home wasn’t really in Oregon, that it existed outside of typical space. He hopes that by making it to the little island, he will be able to access that rift and contact Dean. 

Dropping the anchor, he paddles to the edge of the rocks and steps out of the boat with his equipment slung around him. Shielding his eyes from the sun, he stares up at the crack in the mountain face that serves as the only window in his home. Since he knows that trying to get into the underwater tunnel is impossible without Dean’s assistance, he’s decided to climb. 

More than an exhausting hour later, he makes it to the ledge of the fissure, only to be greatly disappointed. The light is filtering down into the mountain, but it isn’t the same view that he expects. The beach isn’t there and neither is the cave that has become his home. Cas lets his head drop to the rock, gathering enough strength to make the climb to the top. This part of the mountain might not be part of the illusion, but certainly the peak of the mountain is. There is a path through the interior all the way to the top, after all.

He climbs the ropes with burning muscles and chafed palms, straining to ascend the peak before the storm clouds on the horizon reach him. Being this high up in the midst of a storm is a fantastically bad idea. Racing the wind, he pulls himself to the top just as the rain starts to fall. 

Unfortunately, this is not part of Dean’s illusion, either. There isn’t a crevice for him to squeeze through. There is no way into the rock at all. Feeling around the massive boulder that stands where the opening should be, Cas frantically tries to find the slightest give, but it is nothing but solid rock. The first crack of lightning comes entirely too close to him, the crisp smell of ozone stinging his nose. His heart pounds as he contemplates the predicament he’s gotten himself into.

He rappels down the mountain quicker than he ever has before, even during his army days when he was trying to evade German rifles. Reaching the bottom, he finds that the wind is not only causing the storm clouds to sweep across the sky; it’s whipping the waves into a frenzy as well. His little boat is getting bashed against the scattered rocks, the anchor not heavy enough to keep it securely in place. Looking up, multiple flashes of light practically blind him in their intensity. He can’t stay here. He is a sitting duck if ever there was one. He can’t leave his boat here, either. If it capsizes or springs a leak, he will lose both his means of transportation and his only belongings. He will be stranded here, miles from shore.

Waiting for a flash of light above, Cas slips into the water and heads for where he saw his boat. It happens to find him before he expects it as a wave slams it into him. He manages to hold onto it, just barely, but he feels the sticky trickle of blood slip down his temple. Dammit. He can’t stay in the water while he’s bleeding. There might not be many shark attacks in these waters, but he’s not going to risk getting fried by lightning and eaten by sharks at the same time.

Struggling to get into the swaying boat without pulling it over on top of himself, he finally flops over the edge and lays there for a few moments to catch his breath. Rain pounds his face, trying to drown him until he pulls himself under part of the tarp that is protecting his cargo. There is nothing more to do while the storm is wreaking havoc, so Cas rests. 

If he was a superstitious man, he might be tempted to take this disastrous day as a sign. He might read into the repeated failures and assign them to mean that Dean doesn’t want him back. Castiel is not a man who believes that fate is predestined. He believes that every person makes their own fate, and the only way you can fail is if you give up. Cas is anything but a quitter.

While he waits, he sleeps in the uncomfortable bow of his little row boat. When he wakes, the storm has passed, which is the only good news. On the horizon, he can see several other storms forming and lining up to head for the shore. He is, of course, directly between the weather and its destination. He curses a blue streak and quickly weighs his options while he tugs on his hair in frustration. 

If he’s going to attempt to make it to the tunnel, now is the best time. It is close to low tide, so perhaps he has a shot at reaching it on his own air. Slipping into the water again, he takes a breath while a prayer trips through his mind. His first attempt doesn’t get him very far. He is starting out too far away from the side of the little island where he knows the tunnel to be. Moving the boat and its anchor, he starts from a much closer position. This time, he can’t sink deep enough or fast enough. 

Cas picks up rocks from the base of the island and weighs down his pockets. When he steps into the water, he sinks fast- too fast. His ears pop painfully, and he thinks he might have ruptured an eardrum. When he approaches the bottom, he can finally see the tunnel entrance, so he starts dumping his ballast. By the time he reaches the tunnel, he is running on very little oxygen. His lungs are screaming in agony, and he wants to take a breath more than he’s ever wanted anything else in his life. Well, almost. 

He wants to make it back to Dean. He has to make it. His entire life is out of his reach, and he can’t give up. Kicking and swimming furiously, he pushes himself to the edge of his endurance. When black spots swim in his vision, he knows that he can’t go any farther. He isn’t even entirely sure that he has enough time to get back to the surface. He can’t be this close only to fail now. Maybe he can make it if he moves faster.

Of course, the extra energy he expends requires more oxygen, so his lungs start to protest even faster. They take things into their own hands as they try to force his mouth open to take in air that doesn’t exist. He fights back, struggling to swim farther, but his vision darkens quickly. Panic rushes through him in the dark water. He’s going to drown. He’s going to die trying to get back to the man he loves. 

Regret and sorrow squeeze him even more than the pressure and lack of air already is. He feels flattened by it. Reaching out, he thinks about Dean with his last thought.

  
  


*****

  
  


Blessed, pure, life-giving oxygen fills his lungs as his body comes alive. Dean is breathing his magic into Cas, and there isn’t a more desired sight in the world. Cas wraps his arms around Dean’s neck, holding him like the precious gift he is. Dean pulls back to look at Cas’s face, fear and panic filling his own. Cas grins at him and pulls him back into a searching kiss. In a few heartbeats, Dean relaxes and winds his arms around Cas at his head and waist. The kiss lasts until they surface, when Cas begins a litany of words without really removing his mouth from the orbit of Dean’s. 

“I’m sorry. Dean, I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to leave you. I never wanted to be away from you. I love you so much. I don’t ever want to be apart again.”

Dean chuckles. “I’m glad you had a change of heart, my love.”

Cas is clinging to him, holding his face tenderly. “No, not a change of heart. I wasn’t dealing with the attack very well, but I never wanted to leave.” 

Cas looks down, ashamed, and slides to his feet. “Can you forgive me for how I treated you?”

Dean hugs him close and kisses the top of his head. “You’re already forgiven, Cas.”

“I was horrible to you. I would have dumped me on a beach far away, too.”

“I wasn’t trying to get rid of you. You know that. I was only giving you a choice.”

“I just thought you were going to ask me if I wanted to come back. I didn’t think you were going to leave me there.”

“It killed me to do it. I thought I would never see you again.”

Cas tips his head up to meet Dean’s eye. “Let me be clear. I want to stay with you. Always. I don’t ever want to go back to the way my life was before.”

“Never?”

“That life holds no appeal to me.”

Dean gives him a tender kiss on his nose. “Do you want to stay human?”

Cas’s mouth drops. “What now?”

“I can make you one of us. If you would like to become a Caecelia, I have the power to change you.”

Cas tilts his head in thought, his brow furrows. “What would you like?”

“No, I can’t make that decision for you. Just know that I will love you no matter what form you take.”

Biting his lip, Cas thinks. Dean chuckles and picks him up. Cas’s legs wind around his waist automatically. 

“If I become like you, I could pick you up like you weigh nothing.”

“Yes, you could, but you know that I love you just as you are.”

Cas plants kisses down his neck as Dean carries him toward their home. “Would I share your other form?”

“Yes, unless you would like another.”

“No, I love the tentacles. It would be amazing to experience them from the other end.”

Dean lays him down on their bed and takes his place next to him. 

Cas rolls over onto Dean, straddling him. “I would really love to see what we could do with all those arms.”

Dean grins as he shifts forms beneath Cas. His tentacled arms race to reach every bit of Cas that they have missed. Cas sighs in utter satisfaction, almost purring as he rubs against them, too. 

“We’ll get started on that as soon as we can, Cas. In the meantime, shall we see what we can get up to with all of my arms?” 

“Absolutely. Always, yes.”

  
  
  
  
  


_**fin** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed a little escapism into a radically different world from our own. Would you like to see more of these two later in their lives? Would you like to see Cas with tentacles, too? Would you like to see Dean try to pass for human? 
> 
> Leave a comment before you go and let us know what you think.
> 
> With our Appreciation,
> 
> InvictaAnimi and BeesAreAwesome  
> 


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